Randy Charles Morin blogs for the sake of blogging.
|
|
One last thing before I leave to my sister-in-law's New Years eve party.
Happy New Years!
There's one tie in the KBCafe blog awards which end tonight at 6PM PST. I'm looking for a champion to break that tie. Right now, Fight Splog and F-Secure are tied. Please break the tie, before it's too late.
 |
You scored as Neo, the "One". Neo is the computer hacker-turned-Messiah of the Matrix. He leads a small group of human rebels against the technology that controls them. Neo doubts his ability to lead but doesn't want to disappoint his friends. His goal is for a world where all men know the Truth and are free from the bonds of the Matrix.
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com |
Ian McAllister, Program Manager at Microsoft: I had a meeting the other day with some senior players at another Tier 1 internet company. I won't share the name of the company, but suffice it to say that I'm 99% positive you're a customer. At the end of the discussion one of the people I was meeting with threw out a blanket offer to brainstorm other ways in which our companies might work together. He then stated that his company was willing to entertain ideas for working with Microsoft that would help our Search and/or advertising business, with one of the goals being to prevent Google from dominating those spaces even more than they are now. He was essentially saying that his company would help Microsoft level the playing field with Google in search and advertising. I'm not sure if this offer will develop into anything or implying that I'm a person who could capitalize on it, but I do find it extremely interesting that Microsoft is on a different side of this triangle than we would have been 10 years ago.
Randy: Microsoft has been negotiating with NBC of late on the MSNBC venture (television and Web) renewal. Speculate!
Just a reminder that voting for the KBCafe Blog Awards is open till New Years eve. There remains a few undecided categories. If you haven't already voted, then it's time. You can also invite a friend to vote.
Alex Eckelberry: Any application that automatically displays a WMF image will cause the user’s machines to get infected. This includes older versions of Firefox, current versions of Opera, Outlook and all current version of Internet Explorer on all versions of Windows.
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/16074/info
Randy: I recommend avoiding use of IE and Opera and older versions of Firefox and Outlook until this vulnerability is patched.
Higher Resolution slideshow of the KBCafe Blog Award buttons.
Thanks to WongDude for putting together the KBCafe Blog Award buttons. If you want the originals (4K each), then send me an email or download them from Flickr.
This album is powered by BubbleShare - Add to my blog
Robert Scoble: For the record, I have never, and will never, edit my own Wikipedia entry.
http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2005/12/19/my-wikipedia-policy/
Randy: I can do one better. For the record, I nor anyone else has never, and I will never, edit my own Wikipedia entry. Nor have I nor my domain ever been mentioned in Wikipedia. Bring it on!
Today, is, of course, the best day of the year; Boxing day. The day my wife leaves our 3 kids and me at home and has the time of the year shopping. To all the wives and single women, today is your day. Happy Boxing Day!
Kent Newsome has been going thru the Scobleizer's blogroll from A to Z. For each letter, he select on blog to add to his own reading list. Today, he was at I and he picked iBLOGthere4iM. What a great Christmas eve present. Subscribed
iBLOGthere4iM, Randy Charles Morin's blog, is actually one of the first blogs I started reading when I first began to explore blogs as way of getting news and information. This was before I had a news reader and so I never added it to my blogroll. I am happy to have rediscovered it. Lots of good blogging and general tech posts.
Anne van Kesteren: All nonsense. Get over it.
http://annevankesteren.nl/2005/12/conspiracy
Randy: I was thinking that Jupiter Research should drop the research tag from their name. How about Jupiter Gossip?
Michael Gartenberg: The Opera folks are saying this isn't correct and there's no deal. I should have been more skeptical, it's something we would likely have been briefed on if it were true.
http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/012689.html
There's two types of bloggers. Let me describe them to you.
- The first group is the people that link to me and generally agree with me. They are good people. I really like them and everybody else likes them too. Further, when they blog, they are always right.
- The second group is the people that don't link to me or generally disagree with me. They are bad people. I really hate them and so does everybody else. Last, they are always wrong.
And if you think I'm pompous, then you're an ass for thinking I'm not perfect.
My favorite category in the KBCafe blog awards is Best Malware Blog. These are blogs that raise issues related to SPAM, spyware, viruses, phishing and other issues related to malicious software and malicious practices on the Internet. Please take the time to review our four nominees and pick your favorite. If you haven't voted yet, then you can vote on the main voting form. Thanks!
| KBCafe Blog Awards | ||||
|
15. Best Malware Blog
| ||||
Red Flag Deals: If you’re looking to see Disney On Ice soon, there are some coupons available from TicketMaster.ca:
- Use code, MCD, to get $10 off each ticket
- Use code, FS5, to get $5 off each ticket
http://www.redflagdeals.com/deals/main.php/weblog/tbp_dec_21_disney/
Randy: I tried them and was able to get the $5 off the cheapest ticket at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.
Today, Albert Lai and his teammates at BubbleLabs have launched the pre-alpha version of BubbleShare community. You can now see the latest public uploads from the BubbleShare users, all on one Webpage.
http://www.bubbleshare.com/community/
Disclosure: To date, I've resisted posting about BubbleShare, but it's now very public and fair game. I was the original development manager at BubbleShare and left 10 months ago. I have no inside interest other than to see friends succeed.
AP: Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said an open skies agreement with the North Pole gives Santa the go-ahead to deliver Christmas presents without having to worry about government paperwork. Santa's reindeer will be allowed to legally land on the roofs of homes throughout the United States. For years, Santa had been required to make an annual request to the Secretary of Transportation for a special flight certificate in order to deliver his Christmas goodies.
Randy: Merry Christmas to all!
Last year tomorrow, I wrote an article about how Google sucked at everything except search. And I stand behind what I said. It was true. Google Groups, Gmail, Orkut and Blogger were their high profiles applications beyond search and they were getting a lot of bad publicity. Groups was still hanging onto a legacy interface, Orkut and Blogger were slow and buggy. Things sure didn't look good for Google applications other than search.
Fast forward 12 months. Wow! What a difference. Gmail rocks! Groups is much better. Orkut actually works. Blogger is no longer slow (maybe it's a little sploggy). Now we have Google Reader, which is an awesome RSS reading interface (a little very buggy). Adwords, AdSense, Sitemaps and Analytics are an SEOs dream come true. So what changed?
Someone left the following comment in my blog, "google makes too much money to care what you think." That made me think of something that happened this week. I wrote the following in Matt Cutts' (Google employee extraordinaire) blog.
Hey Matt, I moved one of my applications two months ago from kbcafe.com to r-mail.org. I was willing to put up with not being indexed, cause I’m in a long term game here. Anyhow, you mentioned about 301 and thought I’d bring it up. Seems to be some mystery around getting new domains indexed [http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ar%2Dmail%2Eorg].
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/the-little-301-that-could/#comment-7067
Matt responded.
Randy Charles Morin, looks like you grabbed r-mail.org in Nov. 2005. Looks like there might have been some seaminess with r-mail.org before you owned it though. Now that the domain is clean, I’ll put in a reinclusion request.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/the-little-301-that-could/#comment-7082
I've also complained on other occasions about Google applications and Matt and other Google employees are jumping at these opportunities and helping out who? Remember that commenter who wrote "google makes too much money to care what you think." It's the other way around. Google makes too much money because they care what we think. It's amazing what and ear and year will do.
Here's some news. You don't need to be in the driver seat to be charged with DUI manslaughter. Blake Ranking found out the hard way. His friends stuck him in the back seat, because he was acting really loud and really goofy. From the back seat, he reached forward, pulled the steering wheel, causing the vehicle to crash, killing his friend.
Stephen Hudak, a reporter says, "The case should serve as a cautionary tale for bloggers who often post personal information on the Web, unaware or unconcerned that it is available to millions of strangers." So the lesson here is not to get caught by confessing your sins in your blog? He killed his friend! F-ed the confession. The case should serve as a cautionary tale for teens who binge drink. Binge drinking can ruin your life and get your friends (and you) killed. Stephen and Blake, you are my idiots of the day!
NYTimes: The United States Patent and Trademark Office took the unusual step of notifying the companies [NTP and Research In Motion] that it expected to reject the five patents held by NTP in its final rulings. The office has issued preliminary rejections of all five wireless e-mail patents in the past.
Randy: Not really anything new, except a validation of what we already knew and movement forward. The question now is whether the Judge James R. Spencer, of United States District Court in Richmond, Va. will continue to push RIM to settle with NTP. The judge (an American judege) has long known of the preliminary rejection, but has continued to push RIM (a Canadian company) for bigger settlements with NTP (an American company), by threatening the RIM network in the United States. Anyone wanna bet someone in the U.S. patent office is addicted to crackberry?
Reuters: America Online said Google had agreed to invest $1 billion to take a 5 percent stake in AOL, as part of an enhanced pact where Google will move beyond text-based advertising to allow AOL to sell graphical ads to Google's fast-growing ad network.
Randy: What a waste of money.
Update: Google gave AOL a $300m Adwords credit as part of the deal. That's about 1 1/2 yrs of earnings from the AOL search partnership. AOL robbed Google.
Andy Hagans of Performancing values blogs at 24 times their monthly earnings and put that valuation to work in buying thepokerblog.net. That's a P/R (price over revenues) of 2 in a growing industry. I suspect that's extraordinarily low. A P/R of 10+ is more in line.
Inside Google: Google’s Personalized Search has added a new feature, Trends, which shows analysis of your personal searching history, a sort of personal Zeitgeist.
http://www.google.com/psearch/trends
Randy: My Top Clicks...
| 1. | |
| 2. | |
| 3. | |
| 4. | |
| 5. | |
| 6. | |
| 7. | |
| 8. | |
| 9. | |
| 10. |
Would it be year-end without Google's year-end Zeitgeist?
Voting for the KBCafe blog awards is now open. Remember, you can only vote once, so choose all your selections before clicking the Submit Vote button. You may vote for two blogs in the same category, if you have a hard time deciding. Voting is open till new years eve 6PM PST. Thanks and good luck!
I'm just preparing the final voting form for the KBCafe blog awards. Some categories didn't receive any nominees and were dropped. Others didn't receive enough nominees (3) to bother voting. The one or two nominees in those categories will be said to be winners by acclamation (even though there may be 2). The list of winners by acclamation follow...
- Best Anonymous or Former Employee Blog
Mini-Microsoft - http://minimsft.blogspot.com/ - Best New York Blog
Gawker - http://www.gawker.com/
Gothamist - http://www.gothamist.com/ - Best Japan Blog
Japan Window - http://www.japanwindow.com/ - Best Middle East Blog
Iraq the Model - http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/ - Best Web Design Blog
A List Apart - http://www.alistapart.com/
Zeldman - http://www.zeldman.com/ - Best Web Services Blog
Amazon Web Services Blog - http://aws.typepad.com/
Yahoo! Web Services Blog - http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/ - Best Gambling Blog
The Gambling Weblog - http://www.gambling-weblog.com/ - Best Basketball Blog
Raptor Blog - http://www.raptorblog.com/
Blog Maverick - http://www.blogmaverick.com/ - Best Football Blog
The Blue Gray Sky - http://bluegraysky.blogspot.com/
NFL Cheerleader Blog - http://nflcheerleader.blogspot.com/ - Best Religion Blog
The Evangelical Outpost - http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/ - Best Anti-Fan Blog
Is Google Evil - http://www.isgoogleevil.com/
Mini-Microsoft - http://minimsft.blogspot.com/ - Best Family Blog
Dooce - http://www.dooce.com/
flagrantdisregard - http://flagrantdisregard.com/ - Best Sex Blog
Ms Kitka's Red Chronicle - http://www.mskitka.com/
FleshBot - http://www.fleshbot.com/
I should have the final voting form ready this afternoon.
Peter Caputa did a BUI. And here I thought I was the only one who did that.
http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media/2005/12/typepad_blowin_.html
Coolz0r and Jason Schramm interviewed Chris Nolan on linkage and credit.
http://blog.coolz0r.com/posted/chris-nolan-on-linkage-and-credits.html
There was an article in the XYZ magazine yesterday and they didn't even quote me. What the hell is that? What a poor excuse for a newspaper. If they're gonna write something, they should get the big picture and at least send me an email before they print it. I could have told them the way it really is. Pathetic.
Nominations for the KBCafe blog awards are still open (close at 6PM PST). Most of the categories are filled out, but I'd appreciate any help with additional nominations. Categories with less than 3 legit nominations will be dropped and I'd especially appreciate help nominating blogs in categories that are on the bubble of elimination. Here's a list...
- New York City Blogs
- Web Design Blogs
- Web Services Blogs
- LAMP Blogs
- Malware Blogs
- Movies Blogs
- Basketball Blogs
- Scifi Blogs (author or fan)
- War Blogs
- Law Blogs
Reuters: Honda Motor Co. said on Monday it plans to start mass-producing solar cells in 2007, eyeing growing demand for environmentally friendly energy sources.
Randy: After getting my heating bill for November, I'm ready for an alternative to natural gas. I'm even considering opening up my fireplace and burning wood.
Simon Owens of Bloggasm interviewed me and published it on the Bloggasm blog. Simon has been running a series of interviews with bloggers over the last couple months. Thanks Simon!
One of my reader was nice enough to leave instructions on complaining about Bell Canada's service in my comments. Thanks Dave Currie!
Here is a very important thing to know when dealing with Bell Canada on REPAIR issues. Bell is required to maintain a relatively high level of repair service. This is a CRTC Requirement and there are serious consequences to Bell when they do not meet the objectives.
Every time you report a trouble to Bell, obtain the Trouble Ticket Number. If Bell does not complete the repair to your satisfaction within twenty-four hours send a complaint to the CRTC and advise them that Bell has failed to meet a repair committment. Include the date you made the repair request, the promised date of the repair, the fact that the repair was not made, and the telephone number of the line that the repair was requested on..
Here is what happens. If Bell can't fix the problem, they close out the trouble ticket. Then when you call again they start another ticket. his way, they are very few tickets that are not "cleared" within the allotted time.
Please no profanity. No editorial comments. Just simply something like " I reported a trouble to Bell Canada on <date> and they promised repair by <date and time> They failed to repair my telephone service by the promised time. My telephone number is <area code + phone number.> Please investigate this matter on my behalf. I would appreciate a reply to <give valid e-mail address.>"
Send your complaints to the crtc by going to: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/RapidsCCM/Register.asp?lang=E and follow the steps shown.
With Rogers Video Direct, you can rent DVDs online and have them delivered to your door. Right now, you can sign up and get 2-wks free.
For up to 5 years. Could it be time to be a domain hog?
Ready to be annoyed!
You may begin! We're accepting nominations for the 1st ever KBCafe blog awards. By the way, everybody has virtually unlimited votes (100), so you can nominate one blog at a time or one blog serveral times, in one category or many. The number of nominations won't impact the results. I'll have a few helpers and we'll go thru the nominations and accept any that are proper, up to about 24 per category. Nominations are open till December 19th, 2005 6PM PST. The poll will automagically close at that time. Any categories with fewer than 3 proper nominees will be dropped. By proper nomination, I mean, the nominated blog must blog mostly (60+%) on the topic of the category, must not be a splog, must be 3 months old and I'm sure I'll invent some more criteria as the need fits. No blogs authored by myself are eligible for nomination. If you want to post the nomination form, as is, on your own blog, then ping me with an email and I'll send you the code.
CNN: Stanley Tookie Williams, the co-founder of the violent Crips street gang who was executed by lethal injection early Tuesday for the 1979 robbery murders of four people in Los Angeles. [cut] Williams had maintained his innocence since his arrest and conviction in the 1979 slayings. He denounced gang violence and wrote children's books with an anti-gang message, donating the proceeds to anti-gang community groups.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/13/williams.execution/index.html
I'm compiling a list of categories for the KBCafe blog awards. My current list follows. There are no general categories like best blog, but only niche specific and narrow categories. I'll begin taking nominations tomorrow.
Companies
-Google
-Yahoo
-Microsoft
-Apple
-Anonymous or Former Employee blog
Countries or Cities
-Toronto
-New York
-Silicon Valley (San Francisco, Seattle)
-Japan (Tokyo)
-China (Beijing)
-Middle East (Afghan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, India)
Technology
-Web 2.0 (podcasting, blogging, mashups, startups)
-Webvertising (AdSense, Chitika)
-Webpage Desgin (CSS, HTML, Javascript)
-RSS (Atom, OPML)
-WS-* (Web services, SOAP, REST)
-Communication (VOIP, IM, SMS)
-SEO (search, optimization)
-.NET (C#)
-LAMP (Ruby, PHP, MySQL, Apache, Linux)
-Java (J2E)
-Wireless (WAP, RIM, Treo, wireless computing, Wifi, bluetooth)
-Music (P2P, file sharing, music sharing, iPod)
-Malware (spam, virus, phishing)
-Gadgets (electronics)
-Photos (digital cameras, photoblogging, flickr)
-Video (camcorder, videoblogging, youtube, tivo, pvr)
Entertainment
-Movies (cinema)
-Hollywood Insider (rumour or authoritative)
-Video Games (xbox, PSP)
-Gaming (gambling, poker)
-Baseball
-Basketball
-Football
-Soccer
-Hockey
-Music Band (authoritative or fan)
-Scifi (author or fan)
-War (Iraq, terrorism, middle east)
Hobby
-Nature (Camping, Backpacking, RVing)
-Vehicles (cars, autos)
-Religion
-Republican
-Democrat
-Fashion (jewelry, clothes)
-This Sucks (Microsoft, Google Apple)
Profession
-Law
-Library
-Venture Capital
-Finance (trading, forex)
-Science (space)
Health
-Disease (cancer, diabetes)
-Family (childcare, babies, parenting)
-Sex (not porn)
-Food (recipes, cooking, restaurants)
When I first saw the new Google Homepage Widgets, I thought "How boring". Who would want Tetrix on their Google homepage? Then I realized that the widgets were just HTML and javascript and could be ported anywhere.
Nathan Weinberg of Blog News Channel is refusing to pay me my share of his AdSense revenues. According to Blog Network List, I own his entire blogging network. All I want is 50%.
We're pleased to announce the launch of new overall blog & blog network rankings over at Blog Network List!
http://www.blognetworkwatch.com/2005/12/blog_network_list_launches_ove.php
- The KBCafe blog network is ranked the #31 network.
- The RSS Blog is ranked #97 network blog.
- iBLOGthere4iM is #119.
- Besting Adwords #416.
- Bad Politics #625.
- RV Dad #630.
- Destroy All Malware #637.
- Game Certainty #705.
Too cool! Bookmarked.
Red Flag Deals: Today only, eBay has fixed price listings that offer express shipping for 5 cents each, with code XPRS on both eBay.ca and eBay.com.
http://www.redflagdeals.com/deals/main.php/weblog/tbp_dec_12_ebay_early/
Randy: I'm never prepared for this deal. What I have to do is prepare a few dozen eBay listings ahead of time and push them up when these deals become available.
The Canadian Blog Awards announced their winning blogs tonight and I'm proud to say that my Game Certainty blog placed 3rd in the Best Sports Blog category. Other notable winners...
- Accordion Guy - 1st Best Blog
- Photojunkie - 2nd Best Photo Blog
- Alec Saunders - 3rd Best Business Blog
Congrats to all the winners!
Dave Winer: Thanks Adam for inventing podasting and being our leader. And thanks to BusinessWeek for honoring our podfather. He's so cool and his hair is so pretty. Hey he may just be a DJ but somehow he wrote all our software! He's so amazing. ";->"
http://www.scripting.com/2005/12/11.html#When:1:04:50PM
Dave Winer: Sorry for the sarcasm. Let me translate. BusinessWeek is a tool. How dare they promote him without the disclaimer that he fucked with the record, and got caught. They just showed they don't care if you know they don't have any integrity.
http://www.scripting.com/2005/12/11.html#When:2:41:27PM
Randy: But wait, it gets even more interesting.
http://www.tinotopia.com/log/archive/2005/12/11/winer_moderates_himself.htm
Randy: Blogging is a hobby, a profession and most of all extremely entertaining.
With all the great blog awards this time of year, I decided to jump the bandwagon and hold my own. But unlike typical blog awards, I'd decided to forgo categories like best blog, best new blogs, best tech blog, best political blog, best podcast. I want specific narrow categories, like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Iraq, Star Wars, George Bush, New York City, etc. Suggestions welcomed in comments.
Coolz0r and Jason Schramm interviewed Om Malik on linkage and credits.
Are there any policies you follow when reporting on an issue?
Om Malik: I follow the same policies as I do as a reporter. Three sources are a must, or otherwise the story is reported as a rumor.
http://blog.coolz0r.com/posted/om-malik-on-linkage-and-credits.html
Scott Adams: When it comes to gift-giving, they say it’s the thought that counts. So far I had 72 seconds invested in my future wife. I wondered if that was enough.
Randy: My wife buys all the gifts for all the parents, cousins, friends, nieces and nephews. I'm left with her gift, which she picks out at the same jewelry store every year. She tells me what she wants and I simply stop by the store, pick it up, pay for it, have it wrapped and it takes a lot more than 72 seconds, almost 5 minutes.
Today is the last day of voting in the Canadian Blog Awards. Consider this a last minute plea for votes. My Game Certainty blog is in the running for Best Sports Blog. You can vote for my blog, by going to the voting page [click here], check Game Certainty under Best Sports Blog and click the Submit Vote button at the bottom of the page.
And while you are there, vote for my friend Alec Saunders, who's blog is in the running for Best Business Blog.
Of course, this morning everybody and their cousin is linking to a person because he acted like an asshole. A person who readily admits he's an asshole. By doing this, all that you are doing is encouraging this type of behavior. Yes, you are part of the problem. You are participating in the degradation of the blogosphere. And by doing such, you're not likely to get any more links from me in the near future. It's like grade school and the class clown is out of control and we're all standing their laughing and pointing our fingers at him. Encouraging him.
We've had assholes like this before and yes, everybody and their cousin linked to him too. In fact, I think his behavior actually helped him get a job at IBM. But eventually, he left the blogosphere, which was a happy day for many of us. So now, we just create another. Why not link to a nice picture of a Hummingbird? BTW, Hummingbird just announced a 9.8% of the public float share buy-back program.
Or was Scoble Coolz0red?
The answer is "never make mistakes." Because, if you do, the blogosphere will jump down your throat as fast as they can. Case in point, another incident at the latest blogging conference; Les Blogs. What's new? Nothing. This is pretty common. Remember Bob Wyman and Dave Winer at BloggerCon III? Now, I don't go to these conferences and I suspect that's a good decision on my wife's part. But, I'd love to, just once. I'd sit back and watch the backchannel backstabbing. Mena's call for civility is seconded and much appreciated by me. I've always tried to be a peacemaker, with rare success. I appreciate it when others take that task. Now I wasn't there and can't comment on what happened, but when Mena imploded, you knew the follow-up attack on her was going to be fierce.
I woke up this morning...
connection was down.
Nothin' left to do
but to drive all over town....
Continue reading over on Chris' blog.
http://chris.pirillo.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/7/1440622.html
408 subscriptions fully read! Could someone blog something? Please?
Is there anything a Mac can't do? Thanks John!
Albert Lai, owner of BubbleShare, is blogging Subscribed.
Voting is open for the 2005 Weblog Awards. My daily votes will be...
- Best Blog - BoingBoing
- Best New Blog - Blogebrity
- Best Humour Blog - Dilbert Blog
- Best Tech Blog - SearchEngineWatch
- Best Podcast - Adam Curry
- Best Business Blog - Seth's Blog
I voted only for blogs I actually read. I found that most of the categories contained no blogs that I read.
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and Hal Varian, Berkeley Professor wrote an article for Newsweek about Google's Ten Golden Rules. The article is about "key principles Google uses to make knowledge workers most effective."
- Hire by committee
- Cater to their every need
- Pack them in
- Make coordination easy
- Eat your own dog food
- Encourage creativity
- Strive to reach consensus
- Don't be evil
- Data drive decisions
- Communicate effectively
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10296177/site/newsweek/
I most agree with their "Pack them in" principle. I hate offices and cubicles. Throw the engineers in a room full of white boards, computers, desks and let the magic happen.
John Seigenthaler: And so we live in a universe of new media with phenomenal opportunities for worldwide communications and research — but populated by volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects. Congress has enabled them and protects them.
Randy: An anonymous Wikipedia editor wrote...
John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960's. For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven."
Similar comments were also found on Answers.com and Reference.com. Obviously, John is deservedly a little upset and Wikipedia is changing to accomodate.
CNet: Thus, to avoid future problems, Wales plans to bar anonymous users from creating new articles; only registered members will be able to do so.
Randy: Growing pains. Great leadership on Wales part. I can imagine a day where anonymous editing of any sort will no longer be allowed on Wikipedia. And I can live with that.
Red Flag Deals: From now until December 7, you’ll get a mail-in rebate when buying two Teflon Winter Wiper Blades at CanadianTire.ca. The rebate will be worth the price of ONE of the blades. So, it works out to Buy One, Get One FREE before taxes.
http://www.redflagdeals.com/deals/main.php/weblog/tbp_dec_3_teflon_blades/
Randy: The wife has been harassing me to buy new ones for both her minivan and my car.
eBay + PayPal coupon codes. Valid till Dec 18th, 2005.
- C22-GIFTGUIDE: Save $5 off $50+
- C23-GIFTGUIDE: Save $15 off $100+
TorCamp 1.01 is next Monday. Details follow.
Date: TBD/Monday, December 12, 2005 - 6:00-7:30/TBD
Location: 110 Spadina Ave. Suite 303 @ Adelaide in Small Board Room
Format: 4 x 5 Min Demos (5 min demo, 10 min Q&A/Discussions)
Schedule: SignUpHere
About: Welcome to the new Blog Network List, launched in December 2005. Here we'll look at various ways to track and rank the performance of the many blog networks dotting the landscape today.
Some Lawyer: We are counsel for Hasbro, Inc. (.Hasbro.), the owner of the copyrights and trademarks for the famous RISK game. We write concerning the online .Risk. game (the .Game.) that you have made available for use in conjunction with Google maps at your website www.ashotoforangejuice.com/gmrisk.html. Your Game appears to copy elements of Hasbro.s RISK? game and rules as well as its trademark. [cut] We therefore demand that you immediately cease and desist from any further use of the RISK? game and mark by removing the Game and all references to it from your website.
http://www.ashotoforangejuice.com/gmrisk.html
Randy: Booooooooooooooooo! I guess a better approach would have been to ask Chris Hazen, the author, if they could purchase the code from him for a nice amount of money. Refine the UI, put some links to purchase the actual game and create instant Blogosphere interest in a classic game, sending sales thru the roof.
Christian Svensson: According to eBay president and CEO Meg Whitman, a staggering 40,000 Xbox 360 consoles have been sold on eBay.
Erick Schonfeld: Rumor has it that Google will launch a new online calendar/ events managment service at Esther Dyson's When 2.0 conference next week.
http://business2.blogs.com/business2blog/2005/12/google_calendar.html
Randy: Yahoo! Calendar sucks! And Outlook is worse. I'm ready to be converted. Again! Again! Again!
Mark Pincus: i'm pinging you all in the hope you might post something on your blogs about tookie williams.
http://markpincus.typepad.com/markpincus/2005/12/open_call_to_he.html
Randy: I'm pretty much in favor of capital punishments, or as I call it, cleaning up the gene pool. That said, you better be damn sure he's guilty of something horrible. Some people are suggesting that maybe Tookie Williams isn't guilty, that he's a good person and that he's getting the death penalty for having the right colour of skin. Anyhow, as I'm not familiar with the case, I'm not expressing an opinion, just spreading the word. Tookie's story was recently told in the movie Redemption. Maybe I'll rent that tonight.
NBC: [Gov. Arnold] Schwarzenegger has scheduled a private clemency hearing Thursday with prosecutors and lawyers for Williams, who is scheduled to be executed Dec. 13.
Randy: He's got one week to live and maybe deserves that we talk about his case some more. Thanks Mark!
David Crow: Alec Saunders suggested that he’d be interested in doing BarCampOttawa sometime in April 2006.
http://barcamp.org/index.cgi?BarCampOttawa
Randy: "If you organize it, he will show." The me he that is.
There are a few blog award votes in process. The one I'm actively following is the Canadian Blog Awards, mostly because one of my blogs, Game Certainty is close to capturing silver or bronze.
There are five blogs in the second round running for Best Blog. They are...
I've been ready Joey deVilla's Accordion Guy in the 21st Century for a couple years now, so I've been voting daily for that blog and I think he'll win, but they don't name the leaders while the vote is in-progress. Three other blogs I read that are also in the second round are Photojunkie in the Best Photo Blog category and Alec Saunders and Mark Evans in the Best Business Blog category. Sorry Mark, I'm voting for Alec :-(
On looker: The building won!
Randy: Whomever architected this building, should architect the next World Trade Center.
Scott Adams: Yet another “third highest ranking al-Qaida leader” has been killed, this time by a rocket attack from an unmanned drone. There are a lot of jobs that I wouldn’t want, and “third highest ranking al-Qaida leader” is right at the top. But I can tell you for sure that if I ever got that job, the first thing I’d do is narc out one of the top two guys so I could move up a notch. Apparently one of the perks of being in the top two is having a really, really good hiding place. The number 3 through 10 leadership guys are pretty much scurrying between mud huts and looking at the sky a lot.
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2005/12/best_and_worst_.html
John Lennon: Fuckin' big bastards, that's what the Beatles were. You have to be a bastard to make it, man. That's a fact, and the Beatles were the biggest bastards on earth.
Ed Kohler: Want to learn something about yourself? Go up to address bar and type in the letter A and see what site autocompletes. Then do it for B, C, etc. After 26 letters, you'll have a list [cut] telling you something about what type of sites you frequent.
Randy: My list...
- AdBrite
- BarCamp
- Cadenhead
- Danny Ayers
- CNN
- FeedBurner
- Yahoo! Games
- Hockey DB
- ImageShack
- JenSense
- KBCafe
- Law Dawg Blawg
- Gmail
- NBA
- Odeo
- PayPal
- qtpd
- Radio
- Alec Saunders
- Tim Bray
- urbanfoto
- OPML Validator
- W3C
- Xooglers
- Unofficial Yahoo! Weblog
- Zoli's Blog
I ignored any results from SPAM or IMG URLs, which accounted for most all of the first results.
Voting for round 2 of the Canadian Blog Awards has begun. My sports related blog, Game Certainty is in the running for Best Sports Blog. You can vote for the Game Certainty blog, by going to the voting page [click here], check Game Certainty under Best Sports Blog and click the Submit Vote button at the bottom of the page. You can vote at most once per day, so come back daily. Thanks and much appreciated!
Dave Walker put me on a list. I assume the list means I have to blog once about email encryption. He did this over two weeks ago and I bookmarked and lost it in the TODO list until now. My apologies. I use to use PGP with Outlook to encrypt my email. I only use Outlook at work where I've had no reason to use encryption and my life otherwise is pretty much an open book. As such, I've had no reason to look into email encryption. I'm using Gmail at home and I don't think there's any encryption facility.
http://www.freeke.org/ffg/tech/computers/security/encryptedmail.html
I'm uncertain at this point if I'm to call on 5 others to blog about email encryption, but let's do it anyway.
Marc Tacchi has been travelling around the world for two months on a $7,000 unlimited flight pass. He travelled one million miles and accumulated one million aeroplan miles. He's been blogging his adventure.
Hylton Jolliffe: Today we go live with a major new initiative and important new direction from Corante that has us reimagining what Corante is and will be. Months in the making and informed by years spent playing and working in this space, the Corante Hubs and the corollary Corante Network have Corante partnering with scores [cut] of the blogosphere's most interesting and insightful commentators on specific topics [cut] we believe will keep readers up to date and ahead of the curve while saving them the time we all find so scarce these days. Our first areas of coverage: web, media, and marketing.
CNet: Patent-holding firm NTP contends that it owns the patents for the technology that powers RIM's BlackBerry handheld devices, but the Patent Office recently received information that a Norwegian firm may have filed patents prior to NTP, according to various media sources. The ruling by the Patent Office is not final and NTP will have an opportunity to file a response.
CNet: U.S. District Judge James Spencer denied RIM's request to halt the proceedings until the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office re-examines whether the patents are valid.
Randy: I don't understand why we can't put the money in trust and take the necessary time to find out if the NTP patents are valid. It seems the judge is intent on pushing thru the ruling and forcing RIM to settle for more than the already agreed $500M before we find out that all of NTP's patents are invalid. Oh wait. U.S. District Judge. Canadian company RIM. Sorry my fault. I guess the it's not the law that matters, but rather, like they say in marketing, location, location, location.
Rogers Cadenhead: Former MTV veejay and podcasting entrepreneur Adam Curry appears to have been caught anonymously editing the podcasting entry on Wikipedia to remove credit from other people and inflate his role in its creation.
http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2818
Randy: The other side.
Adam Curry: After about 20 minutes of trying to figure out the interface of the editing system I became exasperated and gave up. [cut] So, no editing war intended, pilot error. I apologize for any confusion.
About: World AIDS Day is about people getting the facts about HIV and AIDS.
I finally found the logic behind the two round format of the Canadian Blog Awards.
The first round will narrow the field down to 5 blogs in each category and voting for each round will last 1 week with a 1 or 2 day break between votes. Voting will be the same as last year; everyone will be allowed to vote once per day and the results will be hidden until the round is completed.
Skype: Skype, the global Internet communications company, today released the beta version of Skype 2.0, the newest version of its software that allows anyone with an Internet connection to make free Internet calls.
http://www.skype.com/company/news/2005/skype_2.0beta.html
Randy: As a consumer, you have to love free. As an entrepreneur, you have to wonder about the business savoir faire. Are they gonna stick ads somewhere? Or will there be a premium service? Free video calling could possibly mean the end of modern telephony. Internet calling before video didn't really have a usability advantage over regularly telephony. Add video and you have a new game. I can already invision the new applications; mostly porn related :-(
About: Go anywhere, to any computer, and have access to your Google Talk account via Gtalkr.
Randy: Beyond the Flash animation on the homepage, Gtalkr looks pretty cool! I definately have a privacy concern, which is, login into a Website, not owned by Google, with my Google account username and password. Yikes!
Ken Yarmosh: The final release of Firefox 1.5 is now available.
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
Randy: Don Park chimes in.
Don Park: While I am on the subject of next generation browsers, this is what I think of IE 7: bury it. [cut] Piss on the whole stinking lot and move on to build a better canvas onto which developers can paint their picture on without twisting everywhich way like we have to do now to build even a crippled web application.
Randy: What a great thought!
BusinessWeek: A Virginia court ruled Wednesday that a $450 million preliminary settlement between RIM and NTP Inc., which was signed in March, isn't binding. NTP is now expected to seek an injunction preventing U.S. Blackberry sales and service, which could force RIM to pay more to settle.
Randy: I gotta get me some more patents. The U.S. has to move to forcing reasonable licenses on patents. These $1/2 billion settlements are creating a patent war. You should be able to license any patent for a maximum of $1 million per year or some multiple/fraction of the patent filers research cost, whichever is greater.
Washington Post: Hurricane-ravaged New Orleans will deploy the nation's first municipally owned wireless Internet system that will be free for all users.
Randy: This will be great for bringing in tourists and technology jobs. Although, after Katrina, tech companies will think twice before locating below sea level. I still have dreams of a wireless Toronto. The metro that created Nortel, RIM, 724 and many other wireless companies.
Jeff Pulver: It is now a year later and the following is my list of the Top VoIP Bloggers for 2005:
- ...
- Mark Evans - Mark Evans
- ...
- Alec Saunders - Alec Saunders .LOG
- ...
http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/003374.html
Randy: Congrats to Mark and Alec.