I enjoy sitting down at the kitchen table each Saturday morning to solve the Sudoku and Crossword puzzles in the the East Valley Tribune newspaper. These puzzles may not be as challenging as their counterparts in the New York Times, but the level is just right for me.

Today, while trying to get un-stuck over a few words in the crossword puzzle, I found a great little tool on the Internet, the Allwords.com crossword solver. For crossword purists, using this is probably heresy, but it helped me get over the hump on the words “scallop” and “plight.”

It was also timely to discover the Allwords.com Word of the Week: “Erode generally refers to the process of erosion and the wearing down of mountains and other natural formations. Worse is an erosion of your confidence or self esteem.”

Just think, because of Allwords.com, my self esteem didn’t erode due to crossword puzzle failure!

Technorati Tags: Crossword,
Puzzle

My daughter Holly gave me a calendar for Christmas that offers a bit of sage advice each day. Today’s quotation from Sir Isaac Newton is as germane today as it was during his life 300 years ago: “If I have been able to see farther than others, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”

What humility and gratitude from a man of such gigantic intellect and pivotal contribution to the world! We today are all beneficiaries of giants like Newton and others, on whose visionary shoulders we stand.

Technorati Tags: Isaac Newton

When my son-in-law chuckled about an “ancient” 2 gbyte hard drive lying on my office cabinet, I pulled out some relics from my personal “museum” to show him. The three computers below are the first portable computers I owned:

• Compaq (mid 1980’s)
• Toshiba T1000 (late 1980’s)
• SunRace HyperBook – (early 1990’s)

Myron could hardly believe it when I told him the Compaq originally had two 256Kbyte floppy drives. I thought I was in heaven when we upgraded it to a 5 mbyte hard drive!

And to think that the camera memory card I used to take this photo holds 1 gbyte! I love technology!

Technorati Tags: Computer History

It looks like Santa got a little help this year in business integration technology from our friends at MG Solutions! This fun little sketch was on the annual MG Solutions Christmas card I received last week.

Merry Christmas to all!

Technorati Tags: MG Solutions,
ESB,
Business Integration,
Christmas

This afternoon, I received the following question from a colleague, Michael Goodman, a highly skilled and broadly respected sales professional, via “LinkedIn Answers:”

“With all the social media available, including linked in, Blogs, twitter, plaxo, second life, et al, what is the best way to utilize all this stuff, stay ahead of the techno-bleeding edge, and really, just find another customer to tell my story to?

“I can’t keep up with all the social media, web 2.0 marketing movement. Really, all I want to do is find the next customer. I am hoping someone has figured out the magical answer to taking advantage of technology and simply find new people interested in what I have to offer. Anyone?”

The answers offered were as interesting to the question. It appears that this question struck a nerve, prompting some long, thought provoking answers.

Alan Sabo offered this interesting insight:

“So, the best way to “utilize this stuff” [technologically] is to integrate your efforts among some 13-20 different services (don’t be scared by the number, the key is INTEGRATION – touch one, others update … get the picture?).

“However, technology aside, the best way to utilize this stuff [strategically]is to learn to become transparent. To share yourself and your expertise through case studies and testimonials where others can observe you doing for others – this “story telling” will go a long way to attracting the right prospects to you!”

I think the key is that the answer is not just technology. Social networks may be enabled by technology, but when it comes right down to it, the folks that “network” are humans, who must ultimately sell themselves to accomplish their goals.

Technorati Tags: Social Media

I had my first experience riding in a hybrid taxi this evening in New York City. I rode from Laguardia Airport to the Hudson Hotel in a new Nissan Altima Hybrid taxi cab. It was equipped with a flat screen TV showing the Taxi Entertainment Network along side a map that showed the route were were travelling. The TV setup also included a self-service capability to pay for the ride with a credit card. High technology in action!

For a guy who is old enough to remember the venerable Checker taxi cabs, this was a fun experience!

Technorati Tags: New York City,
Taxi,
Hybrid

Based on a Twitter suggestion from Francine Hardaway, I downloaded Flock, the “Social Web Browser” to give it a twirl. This post was written with Flock’s built-in blog editor. 
I am impressed with the built-in access to Flickr, Twitter and Facebook.  I’ll post more when I get more experience with it.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: flock, browser, socialnetworks

JavaOne, Sun’s 2008 Worldwide Developer Conference, is seeking proposals for technical sessions and Birds-of-a-Feather (BOFs) sessions for the 2008 Confererence, scheduled for May 6-9, 2008 in the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

The deadline for submitting proposals is November 16, 2007.

It was great in 2007. Looking forward to seeing you next May!

Technorati Tags:
Sun Microsystems,
JavaOne

Back in June, 2006, I took posted several photos of friends and colleagues I had taken at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference.

One photo was an particularly unflattering rendition of Danielle Butke of PricewaterhouseCoopers standing next to Josh Lewis of Sun Microsystems.

Earlier this week, I caught up again with Danielle and Josh at a Sun partner event in Park City, Utah. Danielle begged me to remove the old photo. I didn’t want to change history, but agreed to post a new photo. It was nice to see that she is smiling in the new photo, not grimacing in pain!

P.S. Did you notice that Josh is wearing the same shirt?

Technorati Tags:
Sun Microsystems,
PricewaterhouseCoopers

As part of the Sun Americas Software Practice leadership meeting this week in Park City, Utah, we took some time off yesterday afternoon for some team building in the Utah Olympic Park. Sean O’Neil took this little video of me as we descended the “World’s Steepest Zipline.”

Technorati Tags:
Sun Microsystems,
Park City