Humorous, but thought-provoking article by Hal Licino about the the progress, or lack thereof, in personal computer productivity during the last 20 years. You’ll be surprised at how well the old Mac performs.

Thanks to Larry Dignan for the referral.

Technorati Tags: Productivity

It doesn’t seem so long ago that Google was considered to be the knight in shining armor that would save us from the clutches of big bad Microsoft. With Google’s recent acquisitions and aggressive qwest to collect all sorts of information about us all, it seems the tables may be turning. Robert Scoble reports that Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer coined a new term, “Fear of Google” (FOG). Between the Lines warns us to “Be Wary.” Kevin Kelleher of Wired said, “It seems no one is safe.”

There is no lack of positive news about Google, including Calendar improvements, Google Gears, Streetside Views. and Mashup Editor.

There is just this nagging sense in the back of our minds that Big Brother may not reside just in Washington, DC.

Technorati Tags: Google,
Privacy,
Identity

And thank you, Don Bowen, for pointing out this video of Major League Baseball’s greatest play. A great way to close the celebration of Memorial Day.

Technorati Tags: Major League Baseball,
Memorial Day,
Rick Monday

For a few days, I have been using the new ScribeFire blogging client instead of the tried and true w.Bloggar client I have been using for many months.  Some things  I really like; others are a pain.

First, the good stuff:

• I like the way ScribeFire works as a Firefox add-on – it just pops up from the bottom of the screen when needed and allows me to keep the context of the web page I’m viewing without alt-tabbing back and forth between the blog client and browser.
• Inserting Technorati tags is very easy – just type in a list of tags, rather than editing the template I used in w.Bloggar.
• ScribeFire will also post the blog entry to del.icio.us, using the same tags.
• I like ScribeFire’s WYSIWYG editor.  It simplifies text entry, while still allowing HTML source code edit when required.

But alas, ScribeFire is still missing some things I need:

• I have to hand-code attributes for images.  I had to add HTML code (align=“right” border=“0” hspace=“10” vspace=“5” width=”250″) to position a photo my standard way – on the right side, suitable size, with appropriate spacing and no border.
• I have no control over the big spaces that sometimes occur at the end of blog entries.

The tradeoff is convenience vs. control – as it so often is.

PS. Just found another gotcha that will still keep me with m.Bloggar for awhile. I needed to make an edit to my blog entry, and found that ScribeFire won’t update an entry. It posts a new entry, forcing me to manually remove the old one. Oops!

Technorati Tags: Blogging, ScribeFire

As you can see, I now have a row of little icons below each blog entry, so readers can easily submit the entry to Del.icio.us, Digg, Furl, Simpy, Netscape and Slashdot, or check to see if anyone has linked to the article on Technorati.

Thanks to Rich Sharples, who provided the macro code and some background instruction. I also peeked under the covers on Jonathan Schwartz’s blog and the Performancing.com blog to get some icons and link formats. To get thinks working, I needed a bit of introduction to macros in the Velocity template engine used by the Roller blog engine. This also provided an opportunity to review the progress of each of the social bookmarking websites to which the icons link.

It was an interesting way to spend part of my Memorial Day. It will be even more interesting to see if this affects the hit rate on my blog or expands the connections I make through this blog.

P.S. If you know of another similar site you use, please let me know. I’ll try to add it to the list.

Technorati Tags: Blogging

I just updated the Performancing Firefox extension to the ScribeFire 1.4.0.1 blog editor and am giving it a try. We’ll see how this dog hunts.

It appears that several features have been added since I last tried it.

Technorati Tags: performancing, firefox

The Phoenix Suns couldn’t make it past the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA playoffs this year, but Jordin Sparks restored Arizona pride last night when she was crowned the new “American Idol.” A Glendale, Arizona, resident, Jordin captured the hearts and imagination of fellow Arizonans across the state with her good looks, great voice and youthful exuberance.

Congratulations, Jordin, for a job well done!

Technorati Tags: Amercian Idol

Two highly contrasting messages dropped into my mailbox this morning, illustrating the age-old tension between optimism and pessimism.

The first was my daughter Angie’s blog post for today. She writes about her experience in staying up most of the night reading the book, “The Secret,” by Rhonda Byrne.

Angie then comments on her own postive outlook on life, including this profound advice: “it reiterated to me in a very powerful & profound way, simple truths that i already knew & fully believe in my little angie heart: that i am a child of God, who loves me deeply and that i have infinite worth & potential …”

In stark contrast was a humorous, but somewhat disturbing Dilbert cartoon:

As for me, I’ll choose the optimistic approach. And I really needed that when I woke up this morning.

Technorati Tags: Optimism,
Pessimism

Several months ago, I send a recommendation to the Mozilla Thunderbird development team that a way be provided to show only the folders where unread messages reside. Many others must had the same request. When I downloaded and installed the new 2.0 version yesterday, voila!, there was the feature, just as I had envisoned it.

Thanks, whoever you are out in Mozillaville, for making this happen!

Technorati Tags: Mozilla Thunderbird

I recently asked a fellow Sun employee who recently joined our fine company how he enjoyed drinking from the virtual fire hydrant that is the Sun software business. “I can’t drink from it,” he said, “I just get bowled over!”

Such has governed my blogging activity the past several weeks. The wee hours of the morning regularly arrive before I reach the end of my to do list. But I vow to drink faster, catch up, and resurrect my attention to the blog. I promise!

Technorati Tags:
Sun Microsystems