Dell: Dell's 10 Days of Deals is back! Beginning September 1st, every day will have a new Software & Peripherals deal. Take advantage of unbelievable savings with Dell's 10 Days of Deals! Remember once the 10 days are over, so are the savings.

Chris Nolan has pictures of a iPod colored TTC subway car.

http://chrisnolan.ca/archive/ID/00000581

Wikispaces: BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.

http://blogday.wikispaces.org/

Randy: My recommendations...

• http://blog.coolz0r.com/
• http://www.olegdulin.com
• http://www.freeke.org/ffg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rvdad/sets/859052/

Thanks Sis!

grow-a-brain: Trailer for Sarah Silverman’s Jesus Is Magic (Offending for the offendees).

Randy: Please don't click the above links if you are easily offended.

John Battelle: A year ago, Google offered to scan every book on the planet for its Google Print project. Now, they are promising to burn the rest.

Larry Page: And thanks to Google Purge, anything our global microphone network can't pick up will be silenced by noise-cancellation machines in low-Earth orbit.

Eric Schmidt: We believe that Google Desktop Search is the best way to unlock the information hidden on your hard drive.

Sergey Brin: The scanning will be relatively painless. Hey, it's Google. It'll be fun to be scanned by a Googlebot. But in the event people resist, the robots are programmed to liquify the brain.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40076

• Change in median income 2001-2004: -$673.
• Change in the number of Americans in poverty: +4.1 million
• Change in the number of Americans without health insurance: +4.6 million

Results from day 7 of the Ultimate Blogging showdown.

3 - Boing Boing RSS R|mail (226)
62 - PodcastAlley.com RSS R|mail (42)

30 - The Smoking Gun RSS R|mail (40)
35 - Pepys' Diary (brief) RSS R|mail (4)

14 - Media Matters RSS R|mail (54)
51 - mediabistro.com: Media News RSS R|mail (44)

19 - Joystiq RSS R|mail (84)
46 - Wizbang RSS R|mail (35)

The winners will play each other on September 5th.

3 - Boing Boing RSS R|mail
30 - The Smoking Gun RSS R|mail

14 - Media Matters RSS R|mail
19 - Joystiq RSS R|mail

Tomorrow's matches, the last matches of the first round of the Ultimate blogging showdown.

6 - The News is NowPublic.com - developing - recent stories RSS R|mail
59 - Wonkette RSS R|mail

27 - Captain's Quarters RSS R|mail
38 - Luxist RSS R|mail

11 - Common Dreams RSS R|mail
54 - Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) RSS R|mail

22 - Lifehacker RSS R|mail
43 - Defamer RSS R|mail

Winners are decided by which blog has the most inbound linking Websites. If you wanted to vote for tomorrow's matches, then you have to link to these blogs today for your vote to count tomorrow. Results are determined using PubSub SiteStats.

Joseph Laszlo:

5. Larry and Sergey got tired of yelling across the office at one another.
4. Skype’s profit margins just too tempting to pass up.
3. Felt they just hadn’t confused the market sufficiently in the past couple of days.
2. Google doesn't know you intimately enough just reading your e-mail and peeking at what kind of naughty pictures you search for.
1. Wanted yet another communication channel via which to refuse to talk to CNET.

http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/laszlo/archives/010120.html

Usman: Check out this comic posted in one of channel9 forums.

Randy: Saved into the Flick.icio.us folder.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=38644084&size=o

Let me get this straight. They built the entire city below sea level and somebody sold them insurance? What's left of Katrina, will pass thru Toronto over the next few days, leaving behind a beautiful long weekend.

PR: For the quarter ended June 30, 2005 revenue of $17,650 comprised of earned subscriber revenue from our online dating property at www.lemontonic.com.

Randy: A year ago, I was lead developer and architect of the software. My salary was indirectly paid by Lemontonic. More than a year after the software is released and revenues remain below the salary they were paying me. By the way, they spent millions on advertising and they receive a fraction of the traffic that my personal Website receives.

• SMC 54Mbps Wireless G Draft Router - $9.99 (after $60 MIR)
• Hawking Wireless-G Router - $4.99 (after 2 MIRs)

Results from day 6 of the Ultimate Blogging showdown. My only blog in the Feedster 500, Besting Adwords was eliminated.

7 - Fleshbot RSS R|mail (17)
58 - BuzzMachine RSS R|mail (32)

26 - IT Conversations RSS R|mail (11)
39 - Little Green Footballs RSS R|mail (85)

10 - PostSecret RSS R|mail (50)
55 - Besting Adwords RSS R|mail (22)

23 - The Hype Machine - Blog Music RSS R|mail (6)
42 - drunkenhero.com RSS R|mail (1)

The winners will play each other on September 4th.

58 - BuzzMachine RSS R|mail
39 - Little Green Footballs RSS R|mail

10 - PostSecret RSS R|mail
23 - The Hype Machine - Blog Music RSS R|mail

Tomorrow's matches.

3 - Boing Boing RSS R|mail
62 - PodcastAlley.com RSS R|mail

30 - The Smoking Gun RSS R|mail
35 - Pepys' Diary (brief) RSS R|mail

14 - Media Matters RSS R|mail
51 - mediabistro.com: Media News RSS R|mail

19 - Joystiq RSS R|mail
46 - Wizbang RSS R|mail

Remember that winners are decided by which blog has the most inbound linking Websites. You can influence these results by simply linking to your favorite blog. For example, if you wanted to vote for tomorrow's matches, then you have to link to these blogs today. Results are determined using PubSub SiteStats.

Quote: For one day only, you can get an ad-free version of Opera. Simply e-mail registerme@opera.com to obtain a registration code.

http://www.download.com/Opera/3000-2356_4-10421507.html?tag=excl

Robert Scoble: If you don't know who Susan is, she's one of our brightest researchers and works on MSN Search [cut]. Do a Google Search for her name. Now look over at the ads.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/08/29.html#a10997

Results from day 5 of the Ultimate Blogging showdown.

2 - deviantART.com RSS R|mail (94)
63 - Digital Media Jobs Blog RSS R|mail (10)

31 - Political Animal RSS R|mail (37)
34 - Eschaton RSS R|mail (43)

15 - Instapundit.com RSS R|mail (45)
50 - McSweeney's RSS R|mail (19)

18 - Gawker RSS R|mail (30)
47 - MilkandCookies.com: Latest Links RSS R|mail (25)

The winners will play on September 4th.

2 - deviantART.com RSS R|mail
34 - Eschaton RSS R|mail

15 - Instapundit.com RSS R|mail
18 - Gawker RSS R|mail

Tomorrow's matches are...

7 - Fleshbot RSS R|mail
58 - BuzzMachine RSS R|mail

26 - IT Conversations RSS R|mail
39 - Little Green Footballs RSS R|mail

10 - PostSecret RSS R|mail
55 - Besting Adwords RSS R|mail

23 - The Hype Machine - Blog Music RSS R|mail
42 - drunkenhero.com RSS R|mail

Remember that winners are decided by which blog has the most inbound linking Websites. You can influence these results by simply linking to your favorite blog. For example, if you wanted to vote for Besting Adwords (one of my blogs), which is competing tomorrow, then you have to link to this blog today (please). Results are determined using PubSub SiteStats.

Thomas Müller: If Flickr really forces me to join Yahoo in 2006 in order to still use my account, I will quit 24 hours before the deadline.

http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,68654,00.html

Yahoo! is registering domains for $5.

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/

Amazon has a Half-Life collection on sales for $17.

Click here to check it out.

Results from day 3 and 4 of the Ultimate Blogging showdown.

August 27th

4 - Albino Blacksheep RSS R|mail (92)
61 - Ticketsea.com RSS R|mail (4)

29 - AMERICAblog RSS R|mail (37)
36 - Channel 9 RSS R|mail (21)

13 - Creative Commons Blog - rss RSS R|mail (62)
52 - Om Malik's Broadband Blog RSS R|mail (52)

20 - Power Line RSS R|mail (93)
45 - Hit and Run RSS R|mail (55)

August 28th

5 - Daily Kos RSS R|mail (86)
60 - Waxy.org Links RSS R|mail (22)

28 - MAKE: Blog RSS R|mail (35)
37 - Talking Points Memo RSS R|mail (17)

12 - The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed RSS R|mail (92)
53 - Crooks and Liars RSS R|mail (56)

21 - The Drudge Report RSS R|mail (19)
44 - knittyBlog RSS R|mail (14)

This sets up the following September 3rd matches.

winners of August 27th
4 - Albino Blacksheep RSS R|mail
29 - AMERICAblog RSS R|mail

13 - Creative Commons Blog - rss RSS R|mail
20 - Power Line RSS R|mail

winners of August 28th
5 - Daily Kos RSS R|mail
28 - MAKE: Blog RSS R|mail

12 - The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed RSS R|mail
21 - The Drudge Report RSS R|mail

Dave Winer: When the bashing stops...

http://archive.scripting.com/2005/08/26#When:11:49:08AM

Randy: I like pudding!

TheSource: This Weekend Only! 500-pack of paper.

http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/default.aspx?ref=2000

No upsets in today's head-to-head matches of the Ultimate Blogging Showdown.

8 - Gizmodo RSS R|mail (133)
57 - Joel on Software RSS R|mail (27)

25 - TV Squad RSS R|mail (39)
40 - LiquidGeneration: The Suck My Blog RSS R|mail (35)

9 - Michelle Malkin RSS R|mail (99)
56 - Micro Persuasion RSS R|mail (35)

24 - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) RSS R|mail (96)
41 - WorldChanging: Another World Is Here RSS R|mail (22)

Today's winners will play again head-to-head on September 2nd.

8 - Gizmodo RSS R|mail
25 - TV Squad RSS R|mail

9 - Michelle Malkin RSS R|mail
24 - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) RSS R|mail

Tomorrow's lineup includes the Channel 9 community.

4 - Albino Blacksheep RSS R|mail
61 - Ticketsea.com RSS R|mail

29 - AMERICAblog RSS R|mail
36 - Channel 9 RSS R|mail

13 - Creative Commons Blog - rss RSS R|mail
52 - Om Malik's Broadband Blog RSS R|mail

20 - Power Line RSS R|mail
45 - Hit and Run RSS R|mail

Remember, you can influence the results by simply linking to your favorite blogs. In order to vote for tomorrow's matches, simply link to them today. You can view the entire lineup of past and future matches at the following link.

http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/ultimate.blogging.html

Marc Canter: Did I ever tell yah teh story fo sitting next to Dave Wienr and watchign hime xplain teh Frontier object database to me? [cut] Well that something cooler is now called Laszlo.

Randy: Question? Does Laszlo have a spellcheck? Google Toolbar does.

Marc Canter: Dave commented to me that T B-L has these young people who go around and attack anybody who attacks Tim (no - not THAT Tim, the other Tim.).

Randy: WTF? Sounds like the pissing wars are back! Where's Pilgrim?

http://marc.blogs.it/archives/2005/08/daves_back.html

Hillary is blogging on Yahoo!

http://blogs.health.yahoo.com/blog-for-hope/clinton/

By the way, her plastic surgeon isn't very good. That neck tuck makes her look like a bobblehead.

Q: OMG, it is really annoying to have to log in to Yahoo over and over many times a day just to get my Flickr fix! [This is not a question.] Uh ... isn't it annoying?!!?

A: Yes, it really, truly is. It's enough to drive one batty. And it's a bug. And a fix will be out soon. It's taken a while, but for security reasons we couldn't do the quick fix here. Just be patient for one more week :)

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Flickrblog?m=446

Randy: There's a light at the end of this madness.

Three upsets in four head-to-head matches on day one of the Ultimate Blogging Showdown.

1 - Engadget RSS R|mail (241)
64 - Democracy Now! RSS R|mail (33)

32 - Something Awful RSS R|mail (28)
33 - Autoblog RSS R|mail (37)

16 - WILLisms.com RSS R|mail (12)
49 - Schneier on Security RSS R|mail (21)

17 - Google GlobeTrotting RSS R|mail (7)
48 - SF Bay Area Indymedia RSS R|mail (11)

This pits two properties of WeblogsInc (Engadget and Autoblog) against each other next week. Two low rank blogs (Schneier and Indybay) move into the second round where they will face each other and at least one will move into the third round. The winners of today's matches will play each other on September 2nd.

1 - Engadget RSS R|mail
33 - Autoblog RSS R|mail

49 - Schneier on Security RSS R|mail 
48 - SF Bay Area Indymedia RSS R|mail

Tomorrow's scheduled matches includes one of my favorites (Micro Persuasion).

8 - Gizmodo RSS R|mail
57 - Joel on Software RSS R|mail

25 - TV Squad RSS R|mail
40 - LiquidGeneration: The Suck My Blog RSS R|mail

9 - Michelle Malkin RSS R|mail
56 - Micro Persuasion RSS R|mail

24 - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) RSS R|mail
41 - WorldChanging: Another World Is Here RSS R|mail

If you want to influence the results for tomorrow, then link to these blogs today.

http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/ultimate.blogging.html

Google Bashers:

1. You can’t raise venture capital because of Google.
2. You can’t hire engineers because of Google.
3. Google is mean to people.
4. Google is arrogant because they think big.
5. Google is acting more professional and less like a crazy startup.

Waahhhh!!!
Waahhhh!!!
Wahhhhh!!!

Jason Calacanis: Cry me a river.

Randy: Re-Subscribed.

Peter Caputa: I say BRING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Google: If you'd like your outgoing Gmail messages to display another one of your email addresses in the 'From:' field (instead of your Gmail address)...

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=20616

Randy: Thanks Brad!

NYTimes: It was not that long ago that Google reigned here as the upstart computer company that could do no wrong. Now some working in the technology field are starting to draw comparisons between Google and Microsoft, the company in Redmond, Wash., that Silicon Valley loves most to hate. [cut] Now, in the view of Mr. Kraus, "Microsoft is becoming I.B.M. and Google is becoming Microsoft." [cut] Google is also making it more difficult for some start-ups to raise funds. In the second half of the 1990's, entrepreneurs frequently complained that the specter of Microsoft hung over their every conversation with venture capitalists. Today, they say the same about Google.

Randy: The price of success. We will hate you for it.

Google: Google Talk enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free–anytime, anywhere in the world.

http://www.google.com/talk/

Randy: It's here and I'm downloading.

Update: Installed and as usually, Google makes it better. My username is randymorin@gmail.com if you want to connect the dots a little more directly.

I just found a Flash Gordon collection on archive.org.

Take the top 64 blogs in the Feedster top 500. Run them head-to-head against each other for a month. What do you have? Fun! I'm gonna start this in the next few days. Each day, between 2 and 8 blogs will run off head-to-head against each other, using the link count for the previous day, as reported by one of the various blogosphere search engines. The trick? You get to vote by linking to your favorite blog. What do ya think?

Note: In order for your vote to count, you must link to the blog on the day prior to the day they are scheduled to match up.

Update: I've decided to use PubSub for the link count, because the number is pretty obvious and can't be questionned. It might be wrong and that's OK! Unless PubSub falls over, then it'll be the only source and the results will not be questionned, unless Bob Wyman somehow wins.

Schedule.

I maintain my blogroll over at Bloglines, but I also like to keep a OPML version here [http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/blogroll.xml]. I hand edit the exported Bloglines OPML because they have a bug where they use the title attribute instead of the text attribute to describe each outline. Add this URL to the R|mail OPML subscription form and you get my blogroll with RSS chicklets and R|mail one-click subscription chicklets.

http://www.kbcafe.com/rmail/opml.aspx?opml=http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/blogroll.xml

WashingtonPost: Funding: The company has raised a total of $1.25 million. Big idea: Wondir blends search engine technology with message boards to help people with questions find people with answers.

http://www.wondir.com/

PR: Launched six months ago, the live question-and-answer service (http://www.wondir.com) has attracted 175,000 members who ask and answer the kinds of questions that stump regular search engines.

An interview with Blogger of the Day, Dave Walker of freeke.org.

iBt4iM: Tell my readers who are you.

Dave Walker: My name is Dave Walker.  I'm a thirty-(mumble) year-old guy working as a field engineer for an engineering software and services company in the Detroit (Michigan, USA) area. I've lived in this area pretty much my entire life.  I attended (the now sadly departed) Aquinas High School in Southgate, Michigan, and got my bachelor's degree in English Literature from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Owing to the huge demand for sonnet parsing and 5000-word essays on early 20th century modernist fiction, I entered the IT field straight out of college. I've worked for graphic arts and technical publishing companies. I've worked under contract to the U.S. government, I've wandered the independent consultant wilderness, and now I'm so happy at work that I don't even want to talk about what I do. :)

iBt4iM: What's your blog? What's your blog about?

Dave Walker: My weblog is called Freeform Goodness (actually it's called freeform goodness, no capital letters...)  The name is actually a bit of an anachronism.  The original idea of the blog was that it was just going to be the ancillary web presence of my streaming internet radio station.  Back before the RIAA succeeded in smothering streaming internet radio in its crib with high licensing fees, I ran a stream (via Live365).  I patterned the stream on the great old freeform college radio broadcasts I used to listen to.  I'd play all kinds of music, paying very little attention to genre and even less to strict radio station formatting. The only requirement was that the music was good, hence the name. The stream fell by the wayside when I ran short of time and money to maintain it.  The weblog survived, though. My blogging philosophy basically matches my old radio philosophy -- I let the blog go where my interests lead it.  Sometimes it's a tech blog, sometimes it's a music blog, the only requirement is that it's something I feel like writing about.

iBt4iM: What secondary blogs do you have? Linkblogs? Moblogs?

Dave Walker: I'm a huge fan of both Flickr and del.icio.us. I maintain a link blog using del.icio.us (http:/del.icio.us/ffg) and a photoblog at Flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/ffg/)

iBt4iM: Why do you blog?

Dave Walker: I'm horrible at returning phone calls and emails.  Hopefully my friends understand and excuse this.  Blogging is a way of "mass mailing" all of these good people without spamming them. :)

iBt4iM: What are your favorite blogs?

Dave Walker:

• 2lmc spool (http://2lmc.org/spool/)
• Quarter-Life Crisis (http://earthlingsoft.net/ssp/blog/)
• Sam Ruby's Intertwingly (http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/)
• The RSS Blog (http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/)
• Spamusement (http://spamusement.com/)
• JWZ's Livejournal (http://jwz.livejournal.com)
• Engadget (http://www.engadget.com)
• The Rude Pundit (http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/)
• Ongoing (http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/)
• Dare Obasanjo (http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/)

iBt4iM: What do you do when you are not blogging?

Dave Walker: I spend time with my love, Tammie.  I spend time with our beautiful pets, Heidi, Tessa, and Emily.  I ride my bicycle around town.  I enjoy my Mustang  convertible.  I listen to all sorts of music, and when I was younger I'd spend nights in darkened warehouses listening to deep dark electronics echoing off of dusty walls. I play games, notably World Of Warcraft and whatever happens to be most amusing currently on my PS2 and PSP...

iBt4iM: Thanks for taking the time to tell our readers about yourself. You are the Blogger of the Day.

Note: Blogger of the Day is a new series. We will interview one average-Joe great-blogger every few days (we hope). If you want to be the Blogger of the Day, then email me.

Previous Bloggers of the Day:

• Oleg Dulin
• Miel Van Opstal

Just watch the video!

Patent Abstract: A geocoding component generates geographic coordinate information, such as latitude and longitude values, for postal addresses. A table includes a number of rows, each corresponding to one or more addresses. The geocoding component can quickly locate a particular row in the table based on a number of input address identifiers as the intersection of the sets rows that correspond to each of the address terms. The geocoding component may operate on addresses that are received by the geocoding component or extracted from documents.

Randy: This is actually a great patent. They are not patenting a lookup table, they are patenting a function for returning latitude and longitude from address fragments or address fragments within a larger document. Of course, the patent whiners are not gonna like this. By the way, I wonder how long it would take me to re-code the patent in C#? I love patents.

FlagrantDisreguard.com: fd's Flickr Toys [is] a collection of utilities and toys for the Flickr community. Brought to you by the letter E.

• Magazine Cover - Make your own magazine cover!
• Mosaic Maker - Make a square or rectangular mosaic from a photoset or individual images.
• Badge Maker - Make your own (unofficial) flickr badge.
• On Black - Enter the URL of a photo page to view that image on a nice black (or white) background. 
• Flickr Uploader - The Flickr Uploader is a Konfabulator widget that allows you to upload images to the Flickr photo-sharing service.

http://www.flagrantdisregard.com/flickr/

Mike Stanclift: Inquisitive Neowin member Tom Servo, taking a que from member CarlNewton tried to connect to talk.google.com using his Trillian client. What he got was a secure XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, alternatively known as Jabber) server waiting for connections.

http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=30063&category=main

My favorite meal is Kelsey's Balsamic Chicken Penne. The title fails to adequately describe it. It would be better titled the Garlic and Balsamic Garlic Chicken Penne with Garlic. I can smell the garlic on me for the next 24 hours.

http://www.kelseys.ca

Copy. Paste. No attribution.

Movil.be: Bemovil is a new service to send SMS's* from the web and maintain your contacts in a single interface. [cut] In late August 2005 we will introduce our web service for existing accounts.

Randy: Very cool! SMS via Web services.

Last week, I reported an unbelievable story about Linus Torvald enforcing a trademark on Linux. My opinion on the story "Too stupid to be true" was completely off base. In an email to the Linux kernel community, Linus has admitted that this rumour is true and that he is seeking up to $5000 for use of the Linux trademark.

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0508.2/1157.html

An interview with Blogger of the Day, Oleg Dulin.

iBt4iM: Tell my readers who are you.

Oleg Dulin: I am a 26 (well, soon 27) year old software developer from New Jersey. I work for a major Wall Street firm. I never finished High School but I have a masters degree in computer science from NYU -- eat my shorts stupid public school system! I got my bachelors from Clarkson University in 2000, worked for a few dot-com startups; I even started my own at some point. For a few years I was what you'd call a startup junkie seeking adventure and bounty but I think I grew out of it.

iBt4iM: What's your blog? What's your blog about?

Oleg Dulin: My blog is at http://www.olegdulin.com/ . It actually used to be a vanity home page for a few years. I first started it using my student account at Clarkson. After graduation I moved it to geocities. Since 1996 or so it was just a page saying "Hi, I am Oleg, here is my resume, here are my favorite links, etc." In 2003 you Randy convinced me to start a blog. So, here I am, blogging my thoughts about nothing in particular. Sometimes I blog about technology, mostly about politics and my hobbies.

iBt4iM: What secondary blogs do you have? Linkblogs? Moblogs?

Oleg Dulin: I don't really have any other blog. I now have a flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/50338683@N00/ (my flickr name is crzybkr4) which I hope to use as a photo blog. I may even pay for an annual subscription. I am also a frequent poster on saturnfans.com (yeah, I am a dork like that).

iBt4iM: Why do you blog?

Oleg Dulin:I feel that if you don't keep a blog you are not exercising your 1st Amendment rights. I think that bloggers are the new age pamphleteers. In the last couple of years bloggers influenced the national cultural and political discourse. A lot of people, including myself, voice their thoughts and opinions rather than simply yelling at their TV set. That dilutes the influence of the big corporate media. In fact, I feel that if you have something to say about current events and what's going on in the world it is your absolute duty as an American citizen to voice your thoughts in a public medium. Right now is the first time in centuries when everyone can actually own the printing press.

iBt4iM: What are your favorite blogs?

Oleg Dulin: Other than the obvious blogs like Scoble, Boing Boing and Slashdot, here is a list of the blogs I read regularly:

http://www.kbcafe.com/iblogthere4im/
http://www.kbcafe.com/adwords/
http://www.kuro5hin.org/
http://www.juancole.com/
http://daddytypes.com/ -- I am not a new dad, but hope to be one day!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/iraq/
http://www.ukrnow.com/
http://www.topix.net/tech/alt-energy
http://www.physorg.com/

You can actually see my complete blogroll at http://www.bloglines.com/public/dulino

iBt4iM: What do you do when you are not blogging?

Oleg Dulin: I work, drink a lot of coffee, read about economics, history and politics, take pictures and experiment with my digital SLR camera, hang out with my beautiful wife Anna, go biking, visit relatives, sometime we go to NYC and explore, just regular stuff that people do these days.

iBt4iM: Thanks for taking the time to tell our readers about yourself. You are the Blogger of the Day.

Note: Blogger of the Day is a new series. We will interview one average-Joe great-blogger every few days (we hope). If you want to be the Blogger of the Day, then email me.

NYT: Google executives say they plan to unveil on Wednesday a "communications tool" that is potentially a clear step beyond the company's search-related business focus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/technology/22google.html

An interview with Blogger of the Day, Miel Van Opstal, a.k.a Coolz0r of Marketing Thoughts.

iBt4iM: Tell my readers who are you.

Coolz0r: I’m a 26 year old Flemish guy that loves the digital world. I’ve finished High School in 98, started studying ‘Communication Management’ but dropped out in 2000. Then I went working for about four years to make a living. I’ve worked in a kitchen as a chef-aid, cleaned offices, did telemarketing… Just enough to live my (night)life and buy records to mix at parties. Then I finally got caught in the internet web and started doing (crappy) sites when I got home from work for small local businesses. (Enter the restaurant : Hi, you have a restaurant, how nice. Would you like a site?)

I started working at WorldOnline right after the story of Nina Brink and the bankruptcy, as a temp on the sales deck. After a few weeks I was the only one left, covering the Belgian Region. Then Tiscali bought WorldOnline and a bunch of other companies, and I had to go work in Brussels, in the new offices. That’s where I was working when those planes hit the WTC.

For a few months I commuted between Antwerp and Brussels, but I caught myself leaving at seven and coming home at nine. Then I’d be busy with some other crappy sites ‘till two or three am, and head off to bed. I quit working in Brussels, and ended up at GMAC, calculating car loans and other financial rip-offs. After nine months of flexibility and affinity and seven to nining, I decided to go back to school and get a degree. I hated working for corporations. It made me numb. I needed to start on my own.

I’m about to begin my third year of interactive marketing studies. So… to get to your question : Who am I? I’m just a guy who’s on his way.

iBt4iM: What's your blog? What's your blog about?

Coolz0r: Since my nickname’s Coolz0r, and the blog’s about my marketing thoughts, the blog’s name is Coolz0r – Marketing Thoughts. On the one hand it stands for thinking about marketing and thoughts (read:comments) on technologies that use one or another way of marketing communication to reach its potential target group. -- I’m very fond of innovative experiental marketing techniques, and if I find them, I’ll talk about them. On the other hand it stands for the idea itself of marketing your very own thoughts. All it takes is one good idea. If you have that, and the technology to back it up, you’re off. I’m not into a get-rich-quick-scheme, but I intend to start my own consulting company when I get my diplomas. I’m going to market my thoughts. Sell people what I think. It might sound a little off the hook, but I’ve given it a lot of thought.

I also like gadgets. Not that I buy much of them (I’m a student, they’re often pricy etc…) but I’m very interested in what’s going on, what’s possible and what’s about to hit the stores. I adore design. I read a lot of things about it, try to be as open as possible and blog the most interesting things I see/read.

iBt4iM: What secondary blogs do you have? Linkblogs? Moblogs?

Coolz0r: I haven’t really got secondary blogs. I’ve got an account at bloglines I’m going to use for a linkblog, just because you said so and I was bugging people with emails to (what I thought were) good sites or articles. So they’ll end up there pretty soon.

Then I’m helping out Martin from Movil.be with his mobile blog, because well… mobile is the future. ’Wireless’ the word itself just turns me on. Anything on batteries is a turnon, in fact. ;)

Then there’s Nathan’s blogs over at the blognewschannel where I sometimes help him out. I’ve been blogsitting BNC for a few times already.

iBt4iM: Why do you blog?

Coolz0r: There is this urge… No. I mean yes, there’s an urge, but it’s not the main reason. I’m collecting info I can use later on. Things I looked into for school, issues I’ve been dealing with for customers or friends, stuff I needed or wanted to know. In fact, for a big part, I’m blogging for myself. Isn’t that antisocial? That’s why it took a few months before the comments section appeared.

I still think people are afraid to comment, cuz well… I don’t see much action, except from a few people here and there. Which is ok. I like it this way. Now the people who were begging for comments shut up, and it stays the same, only that now with every post I have to change the stupid Java. (I code manually, remember?) Well yeah, what’s another 10 seconds extra?

I just offer you links to, or opinions on things I find interesting to follow or know. If you like them too, hey, be my guest. I’m open 24/7.

iBt4iM: What are your favorite blogs?

Coolz0r:

• http://google.blognewschannel.com/
• http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/
• http://blog.outer-court.com/
• http://www.kbcafe.com/adwords/
• http://www.engadget.com/
• http://angry-economist.russnelson.com/
• http://www.micropersuasion.com/
• http://techdirt.com/index.shtml

iBt4iM: What do you do when you are not blogging?

Coolz0r: Huh? No, kidding J girlfriend, family, some friends (5), eat, sleep, study.

iBt4iM: Thanks for taking the time to tell our readers about yourself. You are our first Blogger of the Day.

Note: Blogger of the Day is a new series. We will interview one average-Joe great-blogger every few days (we hope). If you want to be the Blogger of the Day, then email me.

The Inquirer: Companies have been asked to pay a licence fee [$5000] for Linux software in a move apparently backed by the software’s eminence grise, Linus Torvalds.

http://theinquirer.net/?article=25529

Randy: Too stupid to be true.

Jon Turow: This week, Doug and I spoke with Meetroduction CEO Paul Bragiel about Meetro, an IM and Mobile Social Networking (MoSoSo) platform currently in beta development.

Podcast

Reuters: Internet search company Google Inc. on Thursday filed with regulators to sell up to 14.16 million shares of class A common stock, which would be worth $4.04 billion based on last night's closing prices.

Randy: MHO, this typically means the company believes it's stock is well priced (too high).

ITConversations goes thru lulls of mediocrity and then pumps out a lot of great stuff. Currently, they are producing some amazing stuff.

• Scoble
• Justin Chapweske << must listen, Justin is a genius
• Vint Cerf << Web 2.0 is boring compared the stuff he's working on
• and much more.

I like listening to ITConversations on Odeo. No, I don't have an iPod. I listen to the conversations directly from the Odeo Websites. It's like podcasting for non-iPod owners, a.k.a. the uncool geeks.

http://www.itconversations.com/

Wikipedia: The Flying Spaghetti Monster is the deity of a religion, known as Flying Spaghetti Monsterism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

BL Ochman: FedEx has followed in the hare-brained footsteps of Apple by suing one of its biggest fans -- blogger Jose Avila -- who built all the furniture in his apartment out of FedEx boxes and blogged about it. [cut] He received a freaking cease and desist letter, instead of an invitation to appear in FedEx ads or a gift certificate to Ikea. His lawyer responded.

Randy: This is where the blogosphere changes everything. Companies can no longer get away with this stupidity. Simply blog it and the company loses a few customers. Something similar happened to me yesterday, where a company banned me from using their service. So, I turned those services off. I now offer the same service from their competitor and not from them. WTF? I also removed them from my ping service, which pings search engines on behalf of several thousand Weblogs. Last, I use to regularly blog about them on The RSS Blog, which has 1500+ daily readers. Any ideas how many times I'll mention them going forward? Any ideas how many times I'll use FedEx or recommend FedEx?

http://danisaacs.com/movies/rednecks.mov

Flickr: As of now, anyone can log in to Flickr using their Yahoo! ID. New users will have to use their Yahoo! ID.

http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2005/08/one_less_passwo.html

Randy: I just merged my Flickr account with Yahoo! Painless. Thanks Flickr dudes!

Joe Figueiredo: Both politicians and police are concerned that certain locations in the Netherlands, such as the port of Rotterdam, the royal palace in the Hague and Amsterdam Airport, already potential terrorist targets, could be made more vulnerable to terrorists thanks to the detailed images created from satellites and aircrafts within the last three years available via Google Earth.

http://www.dmeurope.com/default.asp?ArticleID=9618

RedFlagDeals: Best Buy is offering a Hawking 802.11g router and USB dongle for only $19.99.

eBay.ca: Create Your First 5 Listings on eBay and receive: 

• FREE Insertion fee (up to 5)
• FREE Gallery upgrade (up to 5)  

Any Canadian resident eBay member who has never listed any item for sale on eBay.

http://pages.ebay.ca/promo/14082005firsttimeseller/

Michael Anderberg: The coolest Guinness World Record ever :) namely 1073 people playing Counter-Strike 1.1 simultaneously!

http://blogs.technet.com/michand/archive/2005/08/16/409246.aspx

Meetro is ranked #10 on Alexa's movers and shakers list. Up 700%. Alexa ranks Website based on reach and pageviews of user's that have installed their Alexa toolbar. Wanna vote? Install it!

http://www.meetro.com/

I find about one new false positive item in my Gmail SPAM box every few hours now. This is beyond a reasonable concern. Even items that I've clearly marked NOT SPAM in the past and added the senders as contacts are still finding their way to my SPAM bucket.

Further, I just tried to find items in my Sent Mail folder and it turned up nil. I knew I had sent the item, so I modified the search as a test. I searched for the word 'cool', which I'd just typed in my last message. Results zero. I tried a few dozen other terms. NADA.

More, I just got a call from someone pertaining to an email I sent them yesterday and I can't find the email in my Sent Mail folder anymore. There's obviously big integrity problems in the Gmail database.

Last, I have to login to Gmail several times per day now. Why don't I stay logged in anymore?

Update: I now forward my email to both Gmail and Yahoo! mail. Very frustrating. I wish software actually worked!

Has anybody else noticed that Tribe.net seems to be breaking faster than it's getting fixed? I have a feeling that somebody of extreme technical value left the company about six months ago.

http://www.tribe.net/

Dave Winer: Thanks to the gang at O'Reilly for being such good friends.

Randy: It's at the worst of times that we find out who our friends really are.

GAP: Try on any pair of jeans at a GAP store near you and get a free song at iTunes.

http://secure.www.gap.com/asp/shops/gap/fall2005_tv.asp?wdid=0

Fred Wilson: Patents are like nuclear bombs, you just got to have some.

http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2005/02/vc_clich_of_the_1.html

Ryan Block: Business 2.0 reports that they’ve from learned from “telecom insiders” that Google is hard at work on a nation-wide high-capacity data network, buying up unused fiber lines and cheap backbone access to really flesh out their capacity.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000853054453/

Donald Trump has a blog. I can't subscribe. HTTP 500.

http://donaldtrump.trumpuniversity.com/

ZDNet: Clearly, there is no place in modern reporting for this kind of unregulated, unprotected access to readily available facts, let alone in capriciously using them to illustrate areas of concern.

http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020505,39212555,00.htm

Randy: I'm boycotting all CNet properties. They don't understand the line between public and private.

An interview with Wendell Davis of Meetro. What's up with Meetro?

Randy: Meetro's cool. I downloaded it and tried it out myself, but most of my readers have never heard of Meetro. Can you summarize what Meetro is for my readers?

Wendell: Certainly. Meetro is a desktop application designed to facilitate real-time meetings with people locally. Essentially we're trying to bridge the gap between traditional instant messengers and the many location-aware, mobile-based buddy-finding applications out there, to produce something of an all-purpose community toolkit. Have you ever wondered who lives close by, or been curious about the multitudes of familiar-yet-unfamiliar people you pass by on the street, every day? WE want to know not only because our best contacts have always been random, but also because we've found that the social link of a neighborhood can be just as strong as, say, similarity in musical taste. Combined, they're huge. That's why we built Meetro. It's all about digging deeper into the place where you are.

Randy: Meetro has location aware searching, that is, it's suggest people by how close they are to you in distance. Tell me about your location aware services?

Wendell: Certainly. In our research we have found that there are three relatively stable methods of finding location, as employable in a desktop application:

• Wi-Fi hotspot signals. Wardriving a neighborhood or city regularly allows us to maintain a relatively accurate database of locations. This was our original idea for the application, and continues to be a core part of its operation.
• Manual address inputting. This data is internally converted to GPS and used to marry a Meetro user with individuals around him. This is by far the most popular method so far.
• GeoIP data. We have been experimenting with this but have yet to produce results as reliable as with the Wi-Fi or manual addressing. This support is internal only as we continue to refine the techniques.

Randy: What areas do you cover? I tried entering my Canadian address and found it impossible.

Wendell: Unfortunately right now it's just United States proper. We're working as quickly as we can to bring support to the rest of the world, and I apologize to the lot of you for the disappointment of having to wait. Make no mistake: International address support is absolutely a priority for us, and it will be announced as soon as it is ready.

Randy: How long have you guys been working on this technology? And tell us a bit about what software is running on the back-end. Is it LAMP, Java or .NET?

Wendell: We've been seriously hammering away at this thing for about a year, with the inclusion of quite a bit of down time late last year. As mentioned above, what we had originally envisioned was more specifically Wi-Fi based, so there was a lot of focus in that area early on. Later, as it became apparent that we needed a more general location system, addressing was added. That said, it's been a great deal of trial and error, but I feel quite strongly that we're on the right path now.

As for the back-end... I suppose you could call it LAMP, minus the A and P (with the exception of our core web server). So perhaps LaMOCL -- adding in Objective C and Lua -- is more fitting. Despite the arcane appearance, I've just invented an acronym.

Randy: Let's get to the facts about the Google rumours. Are you talking with Google?

Wendell: Well, as for the rumors, I hope to hell that they are true! We love Google, and I can certainly see why people might think that Meetro would fit in with their product line. We've talked with some people there -- they were aware of us before the story broke -- but the fact of the matter is that no acquisition is taking place.

Randy: What's the plans for the next six months? Do you have an imminent release?

Wendell: We do have an imminent release, the details of which will be revealed in a press release on Monday. As for our short-term plans, it's all about ramping up the user base and fostering the new Meetro communities that are springing up around the country. Additionally, we will be announcing support for more platforms and more IM networks, and generally making the software better and better... My definition of "better" includes support for non-US address schemes, of course!

Randy: What's your business plan? How do you intend to pay the bills and make money with Meetro?

Wendell: One of the key focal points of our work was the creation of a network layer which was extremely portable, and extremely flexible. These efforts have manifested themselves as a sort-of location-aware SDK, a "snap-in" product for developers who want to add location support to their applications -- be it games, messengers, or browser plugins. We plan to market a standalone package to commercial developers as early as Q1 2006. Thanks for your time and interest, Randy!

Randy: Thanks Wendell!

Read the Story.

Tickets to the Red Green Show Tapings are free.

http://www.redgreen.com/index.cfm?app=cart&a=tickets

http://flickr.com/photos/kt/32660952/

The net loss for the second quarter of 2005 [cut] was $1.5 million.

http://www.724.com/news/details257.asp

Randy: I gotta congratulate John Sims for turning my greatest technological achievement into a complete and utter failure. Thanks John! I remember, my last conversation with 724, after they screwed me and I quit. I said, "What comes around, goes around." I sound a little bitter and trust me, I should be. But they are royally screwed.

Yahoo announced that it has expanded the size of it's index to 20 billion objects or twice the Google index.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050808/yahoo_search_index.html?.v=4

The blogerati took this as a signal that Yahoo! relevance search is somehow better than Google's.  Unfortunately, size doesn't matter in the game of relevance. Here's a simple trick that shows how Google is kicking everybody's ass. Some queries have very obvious landing pages. For instance, if you type microsoft, then you should get www.microsoft.com. OK, everybody does that. So, move to a lesser known, like a .NET framework class. Type System.Random and Google takes you to the correct page, Yahoo! sends you on a wild goose chase.

Google wins again!

CNet: The most astounding thing about the dot-com boom was the obscene amount of money that was spent. Zealous venture capitalists fell over themselves to invest millions in Internet start-ups; dot-coms blew millions on spectacular marketing campaigns; new college graduates became instant millionaires (albeit on paper) and rushed out to spend it; and companies with unproven business models executed massive IPOs with sky-high stock prices. Of course, we all know what eventually happened to this world. Few of these companies actually made enough money to recoup that cash, and when their investors fled to the hills, these start-ups died dramatic deaths. These are the celebrity victims of the new-economy bust.

http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136-6278387.html?tag=nl.e501

My friends at pluck just told me that this blog is being featured throughout their new site.

• http://www.pluck.com/community/featuredfeeds.html
• http://www.pluck.com/partners/pluckfriends.html,
• http://www.pluck.com/partners/currentfriends.html, and
• http://client.pluck.com/pwe/SignUp/home.aspx

A million thanks and much appreciated.

http://www.pluck.com

The Web is mostly full of fun crap. Including this.

http://www.michaelhodges.com/missing.html

Gary Price: Job-search site Indeed has received $5 million in funding from The New York Times Co., Union Square Ventures and Allen & Company, Indeed said Monday.

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050808-152251

Randy: Where's my money? I've got a job search engine too!

From the same people that brought you SimplyHired, we now have SimplyFired. Stories about getting the axes, with a feature from Mark Jen.

http://www.simplyfired.com/

SatireWire.com: These are real screen captures of actual responses.

http://www.satirewire.com/features/satire-jeevesinterview.shtml

Randy: ROTFL!!!

Too funny! The best "Why W is president film" EVAR!

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2675149

Google: Google is interviewing candidates for engineering positions at our lunar hosting and research center, opening late in the spring of 2007.

http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html

AmberMac: Come join Leo, Andy, Mikey, Sean, Brian, Frank, Jenn, me, and some other surprise guests/T.dot tech fans for drinks, chit-chat, and maybe even a game of pool.

http://ambermac.typepad.com/ambermac/2005/07/toronto_techtv_.html

Don Park: Apparently the site was more like a hitman portal with individiual hitmans advertising their service anonymously through the site.

Kenny G:

1. Wires
2. Windows 3.1
3. Energy/Heat Efficiency
4. '@Home' Broadband
5. HyperCard
6. Small Drivers
7. Pre-Tested Software
8. The Internet before 'You' Showed up
9. Internet Radio
10. Napster

http://www.livejournal.com/users/kennyg/134246.html

Randy: Kenny tells us why he missed these 10 great legacy technologies.

Watch gramps shows up the teens on a skateboard.

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=2465&rtn=index-topten

Somebody is using my comment system to vent their frustration with Michael Shiavo. It's pretty funny. Most of the comments come from the same IP address or public terminals. Although, I can't be certain, it would seem that all the comments are from one author as it's highly unlikely the page would remain dormants for one and half years and than receive nine comments in less than 24 hours. Especially since the original content did not reference Shiavo at all, so it's not a highly ranked search referenced page.

http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGthere4iM/?guid=20041222075734

News.com: A month ago, Microsoft entered into an unlikely partnership with WaSP, forming a joint task force to help Redmond get an array of software titles up to snuff on standards.

Randy: This could be great news for the Web developer, but actions are gonna win the day.

AP: Baidu.com's (BIDU) shares surged in their stock market debut Friday as investors scrambled to buy an early stake in a Chinese-language search engine that hopes to become its country's equivalent of Google (GOOG).

http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/us/2005-08-05-baidu_x.htm

Randy: What Bubble? I don't see a Bubble. Where? You're lying.

Today, I found an interesting link about the bouncy ball Sony commercial. I clicked on the link, you may or may not have the same experience and the following events took place in sequence.

1. Splash Web ad - $$$
2. Big DHTML popup ad - $$$
3. Small DHTML popup ad - $$$
4. Looking for link between all the ads - $$$
5. Found it and clicked it, trying to avoid clicking on all the surrounding ads - $$$
6. Video launches in new window with even more ads - $$$
7. Video starts by playing an ad - $$$
8. Watch video
9. Discover that iFilm left a pop-under for me.

Thanks!

/.: Cnet News.com is reporting that Google is no longer talking to Cnet reporters. [cut] Apparently, Google was angered by an article published earlier by Cnet where all sorts of personal information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt was included.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/05/122217&from=rss

Randy: Egg meet Cnet's face.

Gavri: Rarely does anyone say "But it would be so wonderful to be married. I'm married and I know." No, It's always "Do you want to die all lonely?". [cut] So here's my business idea. Family Rental Services!!! Yeah! Say you are single, old, bed-ridden and are likely to die in two weeks to a month. You call up Family Rental Services (TM) and order a custom-made family.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ga_woo/17262.html

http://gprime.net/video.php/atarigeeks

Randy: They're actually nerds, wannabee geek, not real geeks. Thanks Coolz0r!

CBC: All 309 people aboard a jet that overshot a runway and burst into flames at Pearson International Airport Tuesday survived the ordeal, according to fire officials on the scene.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/08/02/pearson-plane050802.html

Randy: Only in the Ontario horseshoe could a plane crash and everybody survive without more than a scratch. I {heart}the horseshoe. 

Stewart Butterfield: The other new feature is called interestingness and it's huge! A long time in the making, interestingness is a ranking algorithm based on user behavior around the photos taking into account some obvious things like how many users add the photo to their favorites and some subtle things like the relationship between the person who uploaded the photo and the people who are commenting (plus a whole bunch of secret sauce).

http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2005/08/the_new_new_thi.html

Aaron's Soapbox: So a Japanese engineer has developed a robot that looks very human-like.

http://www.schaubnet.org/soapbox/?p=118

Nathan Weinberg: So, I tried out Yahoo Widgets, the program for putting lots of li’l programs on your desktop. Yahoo Widgets was formerly Konfabulator, until Yahoo bought them very recently.

http://widgets.yahoo.com/

Randy: Nathan reviews Yahoo! Widgets. I believe there's a big future in Widgets, but I'm unsure if Yahoo! Widgets are that future. How can they compete in a market that already has C#, Java and Flash applets?

W: I'm a compassionate mime.

http://www.thetoiletonline.com/leaveit3.htm

Randy: Watch all three. Too Funny!

BetaNews: Current, the television network aimed at the younger generation and chaired by former vice president Al Gore, silently went live on Monday to about 20 million households. [cut] The channel also makes use of the Internet through its Web site. Viewers will be able to submit content, vote for what they would like to see on the air, and see a continuously updated schedule of upcoming "pods" on the main page.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Al_Gores_TV_Network_Launches/1122922301