• For Me To Poop On: Scrapes Google and reformats it with a large, floating pile of dogshit drawn over the screen.

Tim Bray: I visited Technorati on Friday and we had a talk about the business side. Among other things, I argued that they should shut down their free service. [cut] the notion that small companies with poor cash-flow should give things away is so 1999.

Randy: Right on! Stop free software dead! But I'm unsure that Tim's suggestion that paid Technorati services would be very popular, especially when Bloglines, Feedster and PubSub provide comparable services for free.

I've been seeing more and more on the Web about this great city in the mid-east called Dubai. Google-It in color. Love to go there, but how do I get the RV on that side of the pond? And check out these Federer-Agassi pics.

daily KOS: This zipped file contains two PDF files -- scans of a 160-page briefing book by Frank Luntz on the lessons learned from 2004 as the GOP seeks to extend its winning streak in 2006.

http://dailykos.com/story/2005/2/23/3244/72156

Simon Willison: Google Maps [cut]. It's a really impressive piece of work. But how does it work? Look under the hood and you'll find a surprising mix of technologies.

http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view?id=236749

Nick Wreden: Here are seven rules for highly effective blog PR:

• Never pitch, personalize
• Respect a blogger's time and intelligence
• "A blog is not about you, it is about me"
• Quality, not quantity
• Feed the food chain
• It's no longer just about the media
• Keep learning

http://fusionbrand.blogs.com/fusionbrand/2005/02/nbsp_nbspnbsp_n.html

Actual Taser use videos.

http://www.taser.com/law/videos.htm

Business Wire: Extended Systems Incorporated, a leading provider of mobile application solutions for the enterprise, said today that the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel has notified the Company of its determination to continue listing of the Company's securities on The Nasdaq National Market.

Randy: Some awesome news for a great development shop in Toronto that was once called MobileQ.

ThinkSecret: With every iPod model set to adopt a color screen this year, Apple appears ready to expand the music player's extra capabilities, especially its bundled games.

Randy: Funny, it turns out the killer app that would put a handheld device in everyone's hands, was a music player. Wait a second, we had handheld music players a half century ago. Nothings changed, just the technology.

I've seen a lot of demos over my years. Although I'm not keeping count, I believe that more than half the software demos I've seen have failed big-time. And more like two-thirds to three-quarters failed in one way or another. I'm not saying they failed to communicate the message or make the sale. I'm saying that the software itself failed. This is one of my pet peeves, because undoubtedly every presentation made with my software somehow fails.

About three years ago, I decided that canned demos were the way to go. Every presentation was canned in minute detail. Guess what? The demos success rate increased. The reason was that I was acting as QA for my own software. When I found a bug, I fixed it. I would run the presentations hundreds of times allowing for slight differences (timing, keystroked, locations) to account for every possible error that could arise. And yet, every once in awhile, the demos still fail. But now, I can trace exactly why each demo fails. I know the reason why, I learn from them and those reasons are becoming rare.

Some people, like the VentureBlog, will tell you not to can your demos because they sound mundane. I have found the exact opposite. If you rehearse your demos one hundred plus times in the week leading up, then you'll find yourself completely comfortable with the material and able to focus on giving life to your presentation and interacting with the audience, rather than trying to figure it out on the fly and apologizing for bugs.

O'Reilly: Like many online service providers, T-Mobile.com requires users to answer a "secret question" if they forget their passwords. For Hilton's account, the secret question was "What is your favorite pet's name?" By correctly providing the answer, any internet user could change Hilton's password and freely access her account.

Randy: Any Website that allows you to change a person's password if you know their favorite pet's name is insecure by definition. I sent T-Mobile an email about another supposed security flaw. I got a lot of errors trying to submit the flaw, but was technical enough to work around them. The reply I got wasn't reassuring either. It would seem that T-Mobile is not secure, at all.

Aleks Oniszczak: Humans are not androids yet, but it's only a matter of time. Are we becoming cyborgs? At what point does our technology cease being a tool and start to become a part of us? Is technology as fashion a step towards full Borg-like integration? And if so, is there anything wrong with that?

Randy: We've been wearing watches for 100 years. We've been piercing our bodies for as long and wearing gold and silver. RFID embedded in my hand. It's the future.

Damon Darlin: You know those really annoying people who ask you about a fact, when they could just as easily Googled it themselves. (After all, that's what you do to answer their dumb questions.) Here is the website to send them to.

Stats Weenie: More than any sane person ever wanted to know about browser stats.

Randy: This guy's pulling together all the browser market share stats he can find.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the stupid things we do.

• We keep knives less than three feet off the gound, in reach of children. Cereal bowls we keep four-five feet off the ground, out of the reach of children.
• We buy fake plants.
• We keep junk in the basement, FOREVER and buy new rather than attempting to find the old one in the junk pile.
• We collect things that have no real value, like hockey cards.

Earlier this month, Lemontonic announced it was releasing V2.0 this Monday. It's Tuesday and nothing has changed. Did the plans change? I went to Lemontonic's investor site and found it's Server Not Found. I also found the flash demo is Server Not Found. Sounds like trouble in Lemon dating land. Another successful prediction in the wind?

Update: Investor site has returned.

CNET: Webroot Software is expected to announce Monday that it received a whopping $108 million round of venture funding--another sign that venture capitalists are laying down big bets on security technology.

Randy: Hmm! The venture capital markets must be gaining momentum for this to happen. Quite a few startups are getting funding over the last year, with bigger and bigger dollars.

Aaron Swartz: Oh my goodness, guys, I just found out that there's this company distributing this thing called a scissors and if you press the wrong button they cut people's faces out of yearbooks! I'm pretty sure the yearbook authors don't authorize these modifications. Who will join me in my quest to ban scissors?

Randy: Aaron does a great job of summarizing this non-issue. I hate scissors too! They are pointy and a primary cause of finger cuts.

create your own visited states map

I'm only counting states I've visited since turning 20 years old. As a kid, my dad drove us thru most of the northern states on our many visits to western Canada. I don't remember exactly which states, so I changed the rules (20+ yrs old).

BBC: Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both in prison in Iran.

Randy: The BBC article doesn't mention why Arash and Mojtaba are in prison. Nor does it provide an easy to find URL for the CPB Website (I found one burried in the right sidebar). Nor does Boing Boing provide any of this. The Web is clickable. Really! Some may not have noticed. Why wouldn't the first mention of the CPB in the article link to their homepage?

BBC: Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both in prison in Iran.

Randy: The BBC article doesn't mention why Arash and Mojtaba are in prison. Nor does it provide the URL for the CPB Website. Nor does Boing Boing provide any of this.

The Web is clickable. Really! Some may not have noticed.

From what I read, Paris Hilton's address book has been plastered over the blogosphere. It could be a hoax. I won't provide a link, I don't want to contribute to such stupidity, but I thought it was worth a post. There were quite a few celebrity phone numbers and email addresses. I guess a lot of celebrities will be changing phone numbers this month ;)

Nascar: Jeff Gordon wins the 47th Daytona 500 -- with Kurt Busch second, Dale Earnhardt Jr. third, Scott Riggs fourth and Jimmie Johnson fifth. It's Gordon's third victory in the Great American Race.

Randy: I want to attend a race this year in March. I'm looking into it.

Mark Cuban: I couldn’t name one off the top of my head that has lost cash money of 1 billion dollars or more, until today. Congratulations Bob Goodenow, President of the NHL Players Association. You turned down 30 teams paying what would probably average out to 35mm dollars in salary per team for this year. That’s more than $ 1,000,000,000.00 in cash that would have been paid to NHL players this year.

Randy: Mark really makes a great point. The comments section of his blog entry are littered with statements that Mark is wrong, because it's the owners that created the situation. Mark is right. The owners are wrong. These are not contradictory. Yes, the owners created this situation by allowing the current salary structure to come into existence. That doesn't matter. The players still lost $1 billion. Goodenow is an idiot. And Bettman is a bigger idiot. It's there combined stupidity that brings us here.

I think I'm gonna start a new blog called 'Game Certainty'. It's purpose is to ensure game certainty for the fans. My first step will be to penalize the owners for this mistake, by outlining related companies that we can stop buying crap from.

MSNBC: Manar was born with a rare condition known as craniopagus parasiticus, which occurs when an embryo begins to split into identical twins but fails to complete the process. One of the conjoined twins fails to develop fully in the womb.

The World is 300 islands, that don't exist, today, off the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Must watch video.

Microsoft: Understand how your kids communicate online to help protect them.

Randy: Microsoft produced a l33t primer for Web unsavy parents.

Ottawa Citizen: The 2004-05 National Hockey League season, cancelled on Wednesday by commissioner Gary Bettman, refuses to die. In fact, by this afternoon, it could be saved.

Randy: Just in time for summer.

Chris Nolan: Tonight I headed down to the Peel Pub for the Toronto Weblogger Meetup Group. It's run by Randy Charles Morin, and 11 people including myself showed up. Randy was hoping one more would show to make a new record of 12 people out for the event.

Randy: Thanks Chris!

PR: Lemontonic is pleased to announce that Version 2.0 of its Web software will be released on February 21, 2005.

Randy: Cool! Congrats Julian!

It seems Google's latest toolbar implements their own version of Smart Tags. I haven't seen any yet (I installed the toolbar), but I don't know where to look. I can't believe they would do this. Do they not remember the Microsoft smart tags touble?

Karma = Karma -1;

Robert Scoble: Five bloggers is all it takes to spark something. If the first five don't work out, try another five. In fact, pitch five bloggers a day every day for the first month after Demo.

Steve Rubel: As usual, Scoble gives great advice on how to get a product noticed by bloggers - find five bloggers and mention their names in posts to play to their egos. He's right.

FreeStanley.com: Now that the NHL season has been cancelled, Free Stanley is urging hockey fans to demand that the Stanley Cup trustees, Ian "Scotty" Morrison and Brian O'Neill, award the Stanley Cup this season.

Randy: Thanks Kevin!

Cory blogged instructions on HowTo get stuff blogged by BoingBoing. As the only true directly competing blog ;) , I feel I also have to provide similar instructions for iBLOGthere4iM. Cory wants you to use a form, discourages emails and provides a set of instruction similar to your tax return. Here at iBt4iM, I don't provide a form, enourage direct emails and I never do taxes, just ask Revenue Canada. Actually, about half of the links I post are from friends and readers that send me the links via email. Now, if I can only get both my readers to encourage a thousand friends each to read my blog, then maybe I can also post ads for the Suicide Girls ;) And it doesn't hurt to click on the PayPal donate button when you send me that link.

Gary Bettman: On behalf of the 30 NHL teams, I want to say how sorry we all are that, given the very practical reality that there are not enough days available to play a representative regular season and Stanley Cup Playoffs, we have been left with no choice but to cancel the remainder of the games scheduled for the 2004-05 campaign.

Randy: Disappointing. I think the solution is to go after the companies owned by the NHL ownership group. Game certainty.

A timeless lesson on how consultants can make a difference for an organization.

Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant, and noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. It seemed a little strange. When the busboy brought our water and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket. Then I looked around saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets.

When the waiter came back to serve our soup I asked, "Why the spoon?"

"Well, "he explained, "the restaurant's owners hired Andersen Consulting to revamp all our processes. After several months of analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. It represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift."

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he was able to replace it with his spare. "I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now."

I was impressed. I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of the waiter's fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the same string hanging from their flies. So before he walked off, I asked the waiter, "Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?"

"Oh, certainly!" Then he lowered his voice. "Not everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also found out that we can save time in the restroom. By tying this string to the tip of you know what, we can pull it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent.

I asked "After you get it out, how do you put it back?"

"Well," he whispered, "I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon."

724: 724 Solutions' total revenue in the fourth quarter was $5.5 million, compared to $3.5 million in the previous quarter and $3.2 million in the fourth quarter of the previous year. [cut] The net loss for the fourth quarter of 2004, computed using United States generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"), was $308,000.

Randy: Wow, great stuff. Congrats to all my old friends still working there.

Dave Walker: I started buying and listening to music in earnest in about 1980 or so. I had a paper route and no real expenses, so I could spend about $10-$20 a month on music. Buying music meant investing in 7-inch vinyl singles or, more uncommonly, 12-inch vinyl albums. [cut] Flash-forward 20 years and I have a $150 device that holds about 20 albums worth of material, weighs ¾ of an ounce, runs 15-18 hours on a charge, doesn’t skip while hanging either around my neck or from my rearview mirror, no matter the terrain, and can, with a little planning, display an almost uncanny knack for picking the right song for any given moment.

Randy: Where's MY iPod?

Mark Zen: on january 28th, 2005, i was terminated from google. either directly or indirectly, my blog was the reason. Read More.

Randy: Mark is the blogger, x-M$FT, who was just recently fired by Google. He does not believe google is either evil or good.

AP: In what could be a last-second breakthrough, both sides of the NHL lockout have given significant ground: The players' association will accept a salary cap, and the league has backed off its demand for a link between revenues and player costs. Now they just have to figure out the money, and time has all but run out.

Randy: I sent an email to the NHL last night, threatening never to attend any event ever again that is associated with the current NHL ownership group, unless they settle immediately. I got a nice reply and moments later we are close to a settlement. Everybody is welcome ;)

Cory Doctorow: The final Nebula Award ballot is out and my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a finalist!

Randy: Congrats Cory! SWFA Nebula Ballot.

The NHL is about make a big mistake, but worse, Maple Leafs Entertainment is about to make a big mistake. If they don't settle, then I'll be upset. Very upset. I'm a customer. No Stanley. No Randy. And I'm not talking about never going to an NHL game again. I will encourage people to avoid any event, at any NHL premise, any event, run by anybody associated with the current NHL ownership.

da-da, da, da, da, iM lovin' it!

Today, like everyday, I received another one of those scam emails where they claim to have $13 million and will cut you a piece for your help (your money). So, I responded via Paypal Request Money for a $1k retainer. This'll be fun.

News.com: Jordan, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, apparently said, according to various witnesses, that he believed the United States military had aimed at journalists and killed 12 of them. There is some uncertainty over his precise language and the forum, which videotaped the conference, has not released the tape. When he quit Friday night, Jordan said in a statement that, "I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists."

Randy: I guess you gotta watch what you say around bloggers. Bloggers seems to be trouble. If you blog, then you may get fired. If you talk to a blogger, then you may have to resign. Stop blogging already. Nah!

The February Geek Dinner is fast approaching. Time to tell the wife that Thursday is a write-off.

When: Thursday, February 17, 2005 at 7:00 PM
Where: Peel Pub, 276 King St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1J2

Stacy: We're engaged.

Randy: Congrats to Steve Jenson, blogging software developer extra-ordinaire, and fiance, Stacy Wong. They've created a wedding blog, to recount the horrors of getting married.

The Economist: Robert Scoble, known in the blogosphere as “the Scobleizer”, is a phenomenon not just because he has had an unusually strange career of late, but because his example might mark the beginning of the end of “corporate communications” as we know it.

Randy: A great article by The Economist on Robert Scoble.

... I said Goodbye to Opencola, my last, real, full-time job. Wow, seems more like 3-4 years ago. In the next two weeks, I'll be starting a new, real, full-time job. That's a long time between real jobs. This new company, that'll remain nameless, is located just south of the old Opencola offices, in the Markham tech district. This'll mean more DimSum lunches with Robin, Noel, Andrew, Valdas and Paul.

The is the coolest Java applet I've seen in a bit. This is what we missed by pissing on Java. I hate you Bill :p. Reminds me of Semaview's FOAF walk, which was the coolest FOAF application, also written in Java. And of course, something this cool, would only be found on John Henson's blog.

Reuters: A woman has been sentenced to two and a half years in jail for ripping off her ex-lover's testicle with her bare hands during a drunken brawl after he refused her sex.

Randy: Ouch!!! Thanks Jeff.

linux virgin: Starting on February 14th this site begin weekly launches of the linux virgin 1.1-1.5 series, an erotic and informative video series about learning to build a computer to run linux on.

MSNBC: MSN Messenger users were having trouble communicating on Tuesday, as Microsoft's instant message continued to suffer intermittent outages.

Randy: I was offline all day and connectivity returned minutes ago.

The Dell Notebook arrived today. I guess I'll have fun uninstalling all the pre-installed crapware and installing my own crapware ;)

• MSN Messenger 7.0 - randy@kbcafe.com
• Yahoo Messenger 6.0 - randymorin

I have Norton Anti-Virus pre-installed. It's prompting me to allow this and disallow that TCP access from various programs. If I were a mundane user, I wouldn't understand the prompts; translates to Yahoo! Messenger would be difficult to install for a mundane user who already has Norton Anti-Virus. In fact, a mundane user would likely have no chance of installing most any software, if they have Norton Anti-Virus pre-installed (Personal Firewall enabled).

• Hmmm! Just noticed that my Dell XP was pre-installed with .NET 1.1. Nice!
• http://www.google.com/google.reg
• Gmail Notifier
• Tortoise CVS

Downloading Tortoise from a mirror, VoxRox at a speedy 8 KB/Sec. Switched to UofMinnesota, no better. Hmmm!

MSN MSGer has been down all day for me. If you are trying to contact me, then try Yahoo! MSGer - randymorin.

The Register: More than 70 per cent of spam comes from PCs infected with viruses or trojans, according to Spamhaus, a leading anti-spam organisation. [cut] Spamhaus accuses MCI of being on the wrong side of the fight against junk mail not just by hosting send-safe.com but becoming a safe haven for spammers in general. MCI ISP tops Spamhaus's chart of 'Top 10 World Worst Spam Service ISPs'. It estimates MCI "earns upwards of $5m a year" from selling service knowingly to known spam gangs.

Randy: MCI!!! Have MCI? Switch now! I call upon all MCI customers to switch ISPs. In fact, if I find out you are using MCI, then I won't do business with you either.

Note: The Register's RSS feeds are USM enabled. Subscribed.

Could be a bug, but I just noticed I have 50 Gmail invites. I'm pretty certain that either this weekend or last week, that I was down to 3 Gmail invites left. Anybody want a dozen Gmail invites or are we past the saturation point? Or is Gmail going non-Beta? More. More. More. More. More. More.

Verna Felton, employee of M$FT and first person to quit "The Apprentice" TV Show tells us why on her Website.

There must have been a reason for me to have quit. Something which made me feel the reward was not worth it. I will leave it at that.

Joey deVilla: As a firm believer in quid pro quo, I do check from time to time to make sure that you're on my blogroll if I'm on yours. If this isn't the case, let me know, either in the comments or by emailing me.

Randy: Joey's in my blogroll. Why? Cause his blog is USM and he posts great stuff. Not to mention, he worked for Nola.

Wired: In recognition of the fact that new technologies are just as valuable to wrongdoers as to those in the right, a new industry group has formed to look at the security threats inherent in voice over internet protocol. The VOIP Security Alliance, or VOIPSA, launches on Monday.

Randy: Now, if we only had such an organization for email and the blogosphere. Or do we? And how come they are not effective?

Almost one quarter into the Super Bowl, I have to wonder how much Donovan McNabb is being paid to throw the game. First quarter MVP is clearly Rodney Harrison, with Terrell Owens a close second.

Let's just say Donovan wasn't the best quarterback today! Pats win, again. I can't believe Rodney Harrison wasn't the MVP (2 picks and 1 tackle leading to a fumble).

NYTimes: Since the Can Spam Act went into effect in January 2004, unsolicited junk e-mail on the Internet has come to total perhaps 80 percent or more of all e-mail sent, according to most measures. That is up from 50 percent to 60 percent of all e-mail before the law went into effect.

Randy: Where there's money, there's a way. It's not so much that the law wasn't good, but rather, the enforcement was very bad.

I voted for VentureBlog as Best VC/Entrepreneur Blog, Micro Persuasion for Best PR Blog, Scobleizer for Best Tech Company Blog. Fast Company Blog for Best Media Blog. Search Engine Watch Blog for Best SEO Blog. Blog Maverick for The Peacock Award. Chris Pirillo for The Chris Pirillo Award. Once again, I voted for the blog that I was aware of and I don't believe I knew two blogs in any one category. I noticed that Blog Maverick, Micro Persuasion, Venture Blog and Chris Pirillo all support USM, so I've added them to my blogroll (which I'll upload at a later time).

Joi Ito: I received an email inviting me to SMS.ac, which I would normally ignore, but it was from someone who's judgment I trust. I clicked through the signup process without finally completing it, but unwittingly gave the service access to my MSN IM information. This spammed my whole buddy list with invitations.

Randy: I get these SMS invites quite often. Very annoying. SMS.ac qualifies as a virus.

Here's the first Tag SPAM I've come across. Basically, this guy added all the popular tags to his Webpage, so that it shows up in most any del.icio.us tag page.

Update: It looks like del.icio.us caught this and removed all the tags.

Last night, I got my first batch of API-based comment SPAM. This may mean the end of CommentAPI on my blog. I'm also considering a simple login for those that want to post, to prevent manual comment SPAM. Last, I'm gonna automatically check all referrers to prevent referrer SPAM.