Been lagging a bit about getting good content and my amass of past wine tasting notes posted on the "Good Juice" section of The Digital Tavern. So while I sip a QupeGrenache (2001 from Purisma Mountain outside Santa Ynez near Santa Barbara) I'm going to psot a couple entries. And I'll endeavor to catch up to a couple months worth of tasting notes and scores. So take a cruise over to Good Juice and check in on the tasting notes.
1:41:55 AM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a central figure in the political transformation of the South and the longest-serving senator in American history, died yesterday in Edgefield, S.C. He was 100.
6:15:50 AM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
The horrible article I blogged about in The New York Times last Sunday (in print and online, btw) has stirred up a number of comments. And I just can't resist going back to it -- passionate as we all can be in these times.
Perhaps the most honest and public display of passion and disgust comes from Jeneane Sessum.
[...] Who will join me in leaping to a firey death after reading The NY Times article on "The Corporate Blog"? [...]
In taking huge Jabs at Alan Meckler and other similar CEO-type blogs, Jeneane is less optimistic about the corporate blog:
[...] WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT; WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES YOU WEEP. WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR SERVICE; WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES YOU COME. [...]
But it's not all doom and gloom for Jeneane, i guess. We both felt O'Reilly said it best. I just wish O'Reilly would apply his own thinking to his blog and those of his colleagues:
[...] God Bless Tim O'Reilly , the voice of reason in the article: "He views blogging as a way for chief executives to do an end run around the company's public relations firms and "glossy brochures" and speak directly to customers and vendors." [...] Tim, may you live long and prosper. Please, reproduce soon and often and send your child bloggers here. [...]
On that note, Stuart Henshall calls to decentralize the experience and admits that "communication silos" could spell doom for blogging. He suggests an alternate path:
[...] (provide) every employee with an RSS feed and enable Kuro5hin type reviews. Then corporate bloggers build reputation (individually and collectively). Both are important and reinforce the need for collaboration. Important posts must not only be projected into the ether (without a corporate rating they are of no consequence) but accelerated around the organization. Blogs work at the fringe and at the center. [...]
And I think Stuart is right on a number of fronts. My point about the corporate blog is that it needs to retain the essence and "soul" of what a blog is and how it reflects the said essence or core of the individual author. for this reason, I'm not a big fan of anonymous blogs. Speak to me. Talk to me. And share with me. But don't hide behind some opaque veil and expect the world to blindly follow the rants, raves or whatevers that the anonymous blogger wants to do.
In that vein, a business, corporation or organizational unit can be personified by attributing human characteristics and attributes. You might be described as smart, agile and innovative. Likewise, you could assign these same to a company. Many companies are so lost like an adolescent trying to figure out who he/she is and as a result have a difficult time focusing on or developing their character. For the focused and evolving a blog that can extend itself further and round out the character.
And I think this is partially what Stuart alludes to here:
[...] While the desire is there to take corporate blogging and doing it publicly, building brands... I believe in focussing on small team internal blogs first behind firewalls. Please keep it simple. Corporates need to crawl first, and the independent blogging by the few will not define "Collective Blogging" or the organization. Only then will corporate blogging really begin to evolve and embrace "Living the Brand". [...]
[...] Adoption of blogs by corporate communications and marketing must start internally. Like any branding or communications initiative, a company must have buy in by all of its stakeholders. That includes employees, suppliers and management. How can a company have a blog that is supposed to represent it's "voice" if it hasn't gone through the internal work to find it. [...]
Conceptually perhaps internally a corporate blog can organically emerge through the collective efforts of its managers and teams. Though Dinaraises a number of issues any manager or corporate will address when considering corporate-sponsored blogs:
[...]
no answer yet to this issue raised by Allan - of how to maintain a balance of content, tone and messaging without compromising the soul of the blogger as soul of the company. In this context, it's interesting to see how the Microsoft employee blogs shape up - i've been following the the evolution of a 'policy' for employees that blog, over at John Porcaro's blog too. Lets see how this evolves.
the second issue is one of bringing more and more employees into the area of blogging. I'm not sure that simply positioning the blog as an opportunity for PR, advertising and marketing a product, process or brand will really work. I think the key lies in recognizing the power of open and trusted conversations and communication , and in bringing in a paradigm shift - a new culture of collaboration.
[...]
And I know there's no magic pill, process or methodology that will give rise to the organic emergence of corporate or marketing-oriented blogs, but I'm encouraged by the discussion, debate and interest in this type of blog. I mean how many political and knitting blogs do we need? Aren't businesses, like humans, just trying to be better communicators so that everyone can have healthier and more rewarding relationships? Let's define objectives as we encourage our clients or businesses to embrace blogging.
Because blogging is here to stay. And while remember in early 1995 when my advertising agency was the only agency in Orange County with a website, I approached my favorite and most innovative client with the concept of a website. They wanted nothing of it. Then I offered to do it gratis. So at least then we had living proof of what a corporate website could be (albeit this is 1995). The client bought in. Well, that's perhaps putting a bit too loosely. The client took the handout. Soon it was easier to convince clients. But it was long cycle. And after reading Tom Matrullo's "the 12-step whiff of whuffie". I think he succinctly shows how history is our best teacher. And how I'm confident history is repeating itself. And how some never learn. Don't stop now. Get over to Tom's commonplaces right now -- well worth the journey and the read. (thanks for the pointer Dina)
Just tracking down current information on bloggers, blogging and the blogosphere and came across these two posts. Worth following the inks. Some good reference material here, too.
Five links about the state of weblogging in depth:
Watchblog.com
A beautifully designed site which explores the 2004 US election across three weblogging panes, reflecting Democrat, Republican and Third-party contenders. It's an interesting idea and elegantly assembled.
Bloggers Rate the Most Influential Blogs
"So here we go again. This column is an attempt to show which Weblogs are influencing the media the most. That's really a vague idea, but that gives me latitude to be wrong just enough to bring your catcalls and counterarguments (please click the "Speak Up" button to the left). "
Lance Arthur's New Site
Lance is back - finally. The creator of Glassdog.com and about a million cool other things finally looks like he's got a ... well I'm not going to call it a weblog because he'll probably stab me.
A Blogger's Big Fish Fantasy
The New York Times retreads the old, "They're in it for the traffic" angle on weblogs - writing an article that's both true and a little frustrating, as it concentrates mainly on people who are pursuing active strategies to get more traffic, rather than letting their site reflect them as people.
Microsoft forming a policy on internal weblogs
Interesting one this - I've worked for a number of companies while updating this site - some have been more comfortable about my personal publishing enterprise than others. Through all that time though I've tried to never talk about specific decisions or ideas ongoing at work unless it was both in my interest and my company's. But who gets to decide? Individual's becoming known for their insights is brilliant for them, and reflects well on a company that employs them. Openness breeds creativity. But where's the line between being open and engaging with a community and costing your company large amounts of money... I think it remains unclear, and Microsoft's stance on this could determine a standard corporate policy that's employed elsewhere. Worth watching, this one...
Five links about the state of weblogging in brief (most via Jason):
Visited my passionate dentist Dr. Wally today at 4:30pm. He's been excited to remove my wisdom teeth. Keep in mind I've had these teeth for my entire life. There part of my body. They came in straight. And they've served me quite fine over the years. But Dr. Wally says I don't need 32 teeth. He says his were removed years ago. His assistant, Alma, had hers removed two months ago. I began to wonder as he pulled the sterile packaging off what looked like a Home Depot shopping cart full of tools. Is he just jealous? Is this a conspiracy? Why is he so damn excited to rip these teeth out of my mouth? I've probably had 5 or 6 dentists in my life. None have ever been so anxious to remove body parts before? He detected my hesitation. Or should I say nervousness? Or, simply paranoia. And with his hands and toolkit in my mouth I uttered in my best imitation of my voice sans tongue and lips "Be Careful," he pulled back and asked, "You don't trust me Allan?" Trust. Is this guy nuts. It's not a question of trust. But things can -- and do happen. "Are you sure you can't find a little decay or some plaque to deal with?" Nope. He went for the molars -- the wisdom. The left side. Two gone. And he's got his eye on the right side. I think I'm going undercover.
I just hope I'm still somewhat wise tomorrow.
12:27:50 AM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
If you haven't followed the Mac news from yesterday, you're missing out on the most amazing new technology I've seen from Apple or anybody in a long time. it's called iChat A/V. And using the AIM IM protocol it enables voice and full duplex audio/video conferencing with plug and play ease. If someone has a video camera or microphone hooked up to their mac it shows this in your buddy list.
It's about 4:30pm in Japan as I type this and iChat A/V pops up in the corner of my screen with a phone like sound announcing that I have a call from another iChat A/V user -- in Japan. That's right. My second experience with iChat, introduced just yesterday and available for a free download (beta version) from the Apple website. It's Joi. Making his second call. The audio quality is amazing. Both of us using simply the built-in microphone and speakers on our PowerBooks we could have a complete conversation with barely any delay, feedback or noise in full duplex mode. Audio quality is amazing though as time passes it slightly begins to deteriorate. But hell. This is beta. Wait till final release this summer. Joi and I chatted briefly, compared notes and both were blown away by the technology. This really changes the picture (pun intended) of instant chatting. Our local Apple store will be selling the Apple video camera iSight sometime this week. Though any DV Camcorder will work.
I was happy to find Halleyquoted in Thom Weidlich's New York Times article "The Corporate Blog Is Catching On." I'm not so sure I agree with Thom and as a result, I'm disappointed in the overall article.
Why? It really didn't address the fundamental benefits of blogging as marketing tool or corporate communications and messaging vehicle. instead, the article is peppered with quotes of a number of corporate executives who are also authoring weblogs. I've read most of the weblogs mentioned. But calling some of these corporate blogs might be stretching the definition. Certainly, as corporate bogging is in its infancy and many such blogs have grown organically from an infancy as a personal blog to what I really think is merely a blog by a senior level executive in a company that doesn't mind associating itself with said blogger. But does this qualify as a corporate blog?
I guess this begs the question of what differentiates a corporate blog from a personal blog? And to push that question further, what defines a blog that is used as a corporate communications or marketing tool? Ray Ozzie(he uses the same Radio theme as me so don't get confused!) wrote and posted a policy about employee use of Weblogs at Groove Networks. Groove then links to a list of employees and even partners who author weblogs. I wouldn't exactly call these corporate weblogs but key to Ozzie's policy is a classic legal statement:
[...] The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer. [...]
Now perhaps the mere fact that Groove has initiated a policy about employee use of weblogs would give credence to Weilich's claim that "The Corporate Blog is Catching On." And while Ozzie certainly has earned his position on the A-List of bloggers, I think his policy is reactionary rather than proactive or strategic. He knows blogs happen. So instead of discouraging or banning the association of the company to employee bloggers, Ozzie grabs the bull by its horns and directs it. Uses its energy for the advantage of the company while protecting itself from any liability. This is smart. But none of the Groove-associated weblogs would classify as a corporate weblog. Even Ozzie's has his own disclaimer neatly displayed in the footer of his blog.
Also mentioned in the article is JupiterMedia CEO Alan Meckler and his blog. I met Alan years ago when he was running the fledging Meckler Media empire and running conferences, shows and publishing magazines. What's funny is his newest venture, The Computer Digital Expo is acronymed (sic) CDXPO and some of his earliest publishing efforts focused on the use of CD-ROM technology. Meckler's sold his company to Penton Media in 1998 and has since focused on Jupitermedia.
Meckler latest venture is rather aggressive. He is going head-to-head with what was once the grandaddy of all trade shows, Comdex. He has created The Computer Digital Expo which is held the same week as Comdex at Mandalay Bay's conference center. I blogged about this new venture in early February. Exciting, ballsy and certainly high-risk. All characteristics that might sneak there way into a Meckler or Jupitermedia brand statement -- between the lines of course. His blog typically communicates these characteristics. Though Meckler admits toning his own "personal" attitude down a bit at the request of customers and others.
[...]Mr. Meckler says he has reluctantly toned down his language from some of his early entries about Key3Media Events, which runs Comdex. "We got some people saying, 'Oh, that's not fair ball,' " he said. He considered their objections ridiculous, but under pressure from vendors, he said, "I'm not stirring the pot anymore, which isn't my nature." [...]
Safe to say that Meckler's blog would fall into the category of corporate blog. And he certainly uses it as a marketing and communications vehicle. It reeks of PR, promotion, news, updates and relevant information about the evolving CDXPO. There are even plugs about other shows Jupitermedia is hosting.
You can't argue with Tim O'Reilly's efforts to wrangle his editors, writers and developers into using the corporate weblog to extend the O'Reilly brand (conferences, developer books, newsletters and websites. But O'Reilly is a case where the user interface and attempted integration into the O'Reilly website makes these weblogs seem sterile, less personal and as a result the weblogs aren't updated as regular as most personal weblogs. Sure, one could argue that these O'Really bloggers are quite productive in their non-blog endeavors. But I still find it confusing. In fact, on many of the pages I found the subhead "Weblogs" but discovered that these were simply weblog "posts" or "articles" -- very confusing -- check Eric Burke's page, for example. To be sure, I would expect the arguably leading publisher of developer-related content to leverage what is the hottest internet technology since Marc Andreesen's first generation browser.
Yet perhaps O'Reilly had the most wisdom of all bloggers quoted in the article by alluding to the core or essence of what a true corporate blog can offer a company CEO or executive:
[...] blogging [is] a way for chief executives to do an end run around the company's public relations firms and "glossy brochures" and speak directly to customers and vendors. [...]
And while Meckler's admitted self-editing may have been the result of customer or shareholder feedback, the danger of the corporate weblog is how to maintain a balance of content, tone and messaging without compromising the soul of the blogger as soul of the company.
[...] "Once you get to the point where lawyers review everything in a blog, it ain't a blog anymore," said John G. Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, who keeps a blog himself, [...]
Certainly with corporate blogging in its infancy, I would hardly claim that they are catching on. Where are the large megabrands? Starbucks? Come on Howard embrace the company culture and speak? Oakley? Nike? Jaguar? Ford? What about public sector blogs? Geeez. There's a rat nest. But we're barely at the dawn of the blog revolution.
As I noted earlier, corporations need to embrace weblog technologies, methodologies and find a way to create a synergistic relationship with PR, advertising, marketing and internal communications in an effort to leverage and extend the corporate brand while refining and enhancing the voice of the company. Even more, when these blogs can open up the dialog between company and customers, employees and suppliers/partners, then we'll start to see corporate blogs take off.
And while I wish Thom took his New York Times piece further, I applaud his efforts. Because you know what the best thing is? The fact that there is a blog-related article on corporate blogging in the Sunday edition of The New York Times -- in print and online. That's huge.
For those readers less interested in things Macintosh or technology, I've moved the very long post I blogged live this morning as Steve Job's unveiled Panther, the 10.3 version of OS X, new developer tools and the fastest personal computer in the world running dual 2Ghz G5 processors to the Mac My Day category. For those who care and want to see read what happened today you can read the entire post here.
3:49:17 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Stop and take some cuttings from the flowers. I made two trips down the street in an effort to put a pace to the neighbor who left the nice note in my mailbox. The first time carrying a couple Hibiscus flowers which I left threaded in her wreath of grapes on her front door. The second time carrying her postcard (front | back) in hand I knocked on the door and a middle-aged woman opened it. Geraldine. There were noisy gardeners doing a mow and blow job on the lawn and landscaping so she invited me into her home. A big fat yellow cat on the sofa and an elderly woman sitting at the kitchen table. Geraldine asked me "Do you know Jane? I take care of her." Geraldine explains that she takes care of Jane who is 84 years old and has dementia. Spends several hours a day with her. Jane didn't even know Geraldine's name on the day I visited. Geraldine and I chatted a while. She's lived in Chile, Argentina and Europe. When asked if she was from any of these places she replied, "No, Pasadena."
We walked to my house and examined the hibiscus plant. She's in some horticultural club or group and was so happy that I'd let her have her way with my Hibiscus bush. "Do you know what you have there, Allan?" she asked. "This is really special and amazing." We chatted about neighbors, dogs, plants and gardens. She's going to take her cuttings Wednesday late afternoon so she can be prepared to do her magic to create Hibiscus offspring from my "amazing" and "special" plant. We both smiled. She went back to Jane. I returned to my marketing project.
photo: a recent Hibiscus bloom from the bush in my front yard. Hard to reference the size of this amazing flower -- it's 7" inches across. I shot this morning at 9:50 -- click on image for larger view.
This week I received three gifts of Blogshares from bloggers who I didn't know and to blogs I've never visited. One of the generous bloggers, Lago, has an interesting perspective on his recent gift giving spree. Lago granted me a number of shares of G33k, Louis Martin gave me shares of Six Different Ways and this morning Gaspar gave me a share of AKMA -- unlike the other blogs, AKMA is one I read on a somewhat regular basis. Thanks for your generous gifts.
The cool thing about these gifts is it did create a diversion in my regular blog reading pattern. Though, Louis -- dude -- get writing your blog. In the meantime, check out these new blogs. Explore those in my blogroll. And if you haven't been to the Digital Tavern lately, you'll find that in the last couple days I've made up for some lost time, so read on!
11:09:55 AM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Falling off your segway does have its consequences, too. I wonder if Bush is an advocate of Tort Reform? Or, will he be calling his buddy that helped him win this last election, Ralph Nadar, for a little advice on product liabilty?
Remember when you were in high-school? What did you do that just embarrassed or pissed off your parents more than anything? Look at Vermont Governor Howard Dean's son. Got busted for burglarizing a country club. I wonder if his dad was a member? Stupid. As my friend Rob frankly put it:
[...] i mean, shit happens when you are in high school [...] been there and all - but you have to be careful when your dad is running for FRIGGING PRESIDENT [...] must gotten "checked" in the head a few too many times [...] in spite of the fact that jeb's daughter is a crack fiend, bush's daughters drank repeatedly under age, and frist's son got busted for DUI and underage alcohol, burglary is a new low [...]
Kids. Well, Dad I'm glad you were only the fire chief and the drinking age was only 18 when I was in high school.
3:58:56 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Eric pointed me to the article in Tuesday's Washington Post about Utah Senator Orrin Hatch's testimonial in favor of "new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet."
Needless to say, this is a classic Hatchism designed to roust the rabble rousers, incite controversy and give the good senator more visibility amongst the haven of controversy. And while Hatch may hardly be a harbinger consumer rights, let alone copyrights, he is quite effective in drawing attention to problems in search of solutions. I don't think Hatch as serious about his solution than he was about drawing attention to the problem. In fact, yesterday he clarified those remarks further here. Yet one blogger has nominated Sir Hatch as Douchebag of the Year [permalink wasn't working at time of post] for his comments. And this blogger thinks Hatch himself is in violation of copyright law by using unlicensed software on the Hatch website.
[...] "If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said. [...] "There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said. [...] Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's senior Democrat, later said the problem is serious but called Hatch's idea too drastic a remedy to be considered. [...] "The rights of copyright holders need to be protected, but some Draconian remedies that have been suggested would create more problems than they would solve," Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement. "We need to work together to find the right answers, and this is not one of them." [...]
While I hardly agree with Hatch's proposal, I do find the blatant ripping off of artists' material a breach of moral ethics. If artists have granted a license ala Creative Commons than so be it. Give the shit or art away. Any way. And every way. Just because something can be copied and distributed with little effort doesn't mean that we should be able to do such things. That's why I'm such a fan of Apple's iTunes Music Store. While the solution may not be perfect (where are the indie artists?) but it's a damn good start.
What I'm not in favor of is idiotic draconian measures to stop the massive ripping and cheating of artists. Think about it. What we need is the greatest motivator of all -- fear. But fear of your computer blowing up in the middle of the night is not what I'm talking about. Look what random check points did to drunk driving in the 80's and 90's. Thanks to a thriving group of Mad Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the awareness of drinking while driving hit incredible highs. Thanks to these and many other efforts deaths related to drunk driving are a fraction of what they were 20 or 30 years ago.
Granted, drinking and dying are a lot different than stealing music. But if you think about it, there was a time in this country that people didn't think twice about driving around with a beer in their hand as much as you see people slamming Diet Coke's while driving. Today, there'd be massive upheaval if you tried to get into a car with a beer in your hand.
Point is, it's too easy to copy and distribute music. And there are no consequences. There need to be consequences. To be sure, my comments are in support of the big record companies. No way. You can it seeing a bit of consequential action itself from its nasty habit of price-fixing.
For those who favor reward rather than punishment as a controller of behavior may appreciate Nikki Flemming, the matriarch of Kazaa which has the distinction of being the second generation Napster, and the notoriety of the largest peer-to-peer (ie. file sharing) network in the free world. Flemming wants to the official online distributor for the entertainment industry. Like Steve Jobs, Flemming believes that if you just make it easy for customers to access, try and ultimate purchase digital content, they won't steal.
[...] "Kazaa wants to put more and more titles on its digitally protected service so that over time, unprotected files get crowded out," the Post reports. "When users search for a particular title or artist, Kazaa produces a list with priority given to protected, for-pay files, which are marked with an icon. Even if the public willingly migrates to paying for music in this fashion, so much is available for free that few expect it to happen quickly" [...]
Now. If that doesn't sound like a designated driver concept, I'm not sure there is a better solution.
Other interesting takes on the topic: Volokh | Instapundit | just for good reading go here
photo: crowd cheering straight-talk presidential candidate John McCain in Los Angeles, March 2000.
2:33:27 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
If you've been following, I'm currently converting my massive CD collection into digital format. It's been going on for days, almost weeks. But anyway, I'm currently at 11,477 songs which according to iTunes yields me 34.5 days of non-stop, unrepeated music while consuming a mere 66.2 gigibytes of hard disk space. I think I've got less thean 500 CDs to go... wish me luck.
It usually happens around midday. You know. Three-ish. I saunter out to my mailbox and grab the daily does of junk, checks (hopefully), bills and letters (ideally) from the mailbox. It's a ritual. But you know I grab the pile in a neat little fold, cruise back into the house and standing over the trash can I succumb to the second daily ritual that involves the mail: sorting. It's the kinda thing best done over the trash. Now I'm fortunate enough not to receive too much mail of the junk type because I've written to the DMA and a few other consumer type agencies and requested that I be culled (aka pulled) from anything resembling a mail list. Somehow I still seem to receive and collect catalogs. You'll be seeing more of this in future posts on The Digital Tavern.
But today was different. I found a post card that had no signs of governmental intervention. That is, it had no postage stamp. Yet it reeked of personal human touch. That's because it was hand delivered. Or as my friend Tim is fond of saying, hand carried. Just a few houses away from a neighbor I in three years living here haven't met. Sad statement, I know. But I'm not going to get into that. I've got an active lifestyle. I travel a lot. Move fast. And live on a street that has an unusual mix of young new families and older families. Not one of of those pre-fab, planned homogenized Orange County communities. Rather, one of those eclectic yet responsible neighborhoods that have organically grown without some developer or otherwise government intervention by design.
So Geraldine stuck this note in my mailbox. Why? She loves my hibiscus bush/tree. it's huge. You'd expect to find this in Hawaii. Hibiscus is typically the fowler you find in the hair those soft and dark-skinned Hawaiian beauties. Quintessentially tropical. Yet beautifully hawaiian. Mine produces oversized yellow flowers that might just be a bit too large for the petite body of an hawaiian princess. Nonetheless, my neighbor fancies some clippings. And I'm all about that. For I tend to ignore this bush. But the snails find it an easy prey. Tomorrow I'll cruise down the street and meet Geraldine face-to-face. Thank her for her bold request and offer her carte balance the freedom to cut at will and make use of these beautiful flowers.
please click on the images of the postcard for larger size view
I'm so damn excited. Today the UPS man left me a wonderful package on my doorstep. My Final Cut Pro 4.0 upgrade. Wow. This thing takes over a gigabyte of storage. No wonder. It now includes Cinema Tools (used to be a $999 option), LiveType and SoundTrack. Plus, a bunch of SoundTrack loops just to get you started. In fact, Erik thinks that SoundTrack is worth the upgrade price alone(he has it listed at $499 but it's actually $399 from Final Cut 1, 2 or 3 in the US) I've got a few projects coming up where I'll use this to prototype and sketch my idea. I just my get distracted with some old traveling footage too. Hmmm. The creative possibilities. As usual, Final Cut is one application that you still get a few phone books worth of documentation. Nice touch.
I still don't have my Segway. But I here that our good president actually is one of the few users that actually fell off of one. This is NOT supposed to happen. I wonder who's at fault here? And could this be just a test to see if the "new" Baghdad will be a test pilot for the Segway optimized city of the future? Hmmm. Even his dad is trying it out for size, too.
12:58:34 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
I know it doesn't sound exciting, but "having a glass or two of wine every day may help reduce the occurrence of bowel polyps". According to this article in The Wine Spectator.
[...] Polyps are projecting masses of swollen membrane that are sometimes found in the colon. Usually benign, the growths can be singular or in bunches, and, over time, they may become tumorous and lead to colon cancer[...]
The study was presented at Digestive Diseases Weekly, the largest gastroenterology event held in the world.
[...] Those who consumed one to two drinks a day, on the other hand, had an 80 percent lower chance than nondrinkers of developing the growths -- or a risk factor of 7.5 percent. The few participants so far who drank more than two glasses a day showed a slightly higher risk of developing polyps than nondrinkers [...] Those who drank moderately as a habit, meaning they had been consuming alcohol for more than 10 years, tended to be free of the growths [...]
Hey, it's Saturday. The sun is shining. We're only days from Summer Solstice. So as the sun sets this evening, why not crack open a sauvignon blanc or a nice crisp white Albarino from Spain. It's the healthy thing to do.
12:38:06 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Ok. I'm going out on a limb now. But Dina. Yeah, you know. The infamous gal behind the "Conversations with Dina" is not only a marketing magnate, but she's a legend with great musical taste (IMHO). Well in many ways. It would be unfair to isolate a particular or singular legendary post. Though I have to admit I was taken back by her Syd Barrett mention in her recent post. To be sure, I recently added Dina to my blogroll. She's not only captured my attention but Marc Canter has similarily discovered her. A marketing mind, musical mandrox and insightful in many ways. Watch Dina. She's the next generation "A" blogger. Locke: watch out.
4:45:43 AM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Oh my god. You know I pulled Christopher Locke off my blogroll months ago. I admit I was taken back by his whimsical and fearless writing, no nonsense sensibility of marketing concepts and ideals and his wacky sense of timing. But he dropped off the scene for awhile, never returned any of my more than 10 emails and his lack of consistency in taking his 'meds' took its toll on his blogger as rockstar syndrome. A fraction of the blogger he used to be. I mean the guy has issues. But who doesn't it. He's brilliant when he's on. And when not. Well, you can take a guess.
So when I stumbled onto his comparison of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb with the bible of psychology, pscyopharmacology and psychiatry
DSM IV(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV), I was taken back. Rage Boy was back. Well. Almost. Perhaps I was just a bit jaded by subject matter.
Anyone who knows me knows that in the past I've been a bit evangelical about the music of Roger Waters and his alma mater Pink Floyd. But you gotta love Locke's Floydian analysis. So I won't rage on about this any further. instead, I point you to the Rage Boy post. And urge you to post your comments here. No matter what, it's amusing, fun and well, it's Locke.
photo: crowd cheering Roger Waters or is it Christopher Locke? In Budapest June 2003.
2:28:19 AM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Did you go to grad school? If so, chances are you spent a great deal of time, thinking, obsessing and ultimately preparing and writing your thesis. Katherine Frank went to grad school, too. But like many grad students, she needed a way to finance her education. But for full-time students a job can dilute the effort needed to truly focus energy on one's thesis. So Kate figured a way to pull the divergent energies together. She became a stripper. Yes. She took her clothes off to cheesy rock songs while thirsty men plunked currency into her garter.
And she wrote her thesis about. Virginia Vitzthum interviewed Kate and writes about Kate's unusual thesis in Salon.com. Kate interviewed 30 of her "regular customers" and turned her thesis into a new book called "G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire."
[...] In the strip club, nudity is a costume. Some of the quest for authenticity that the customers were on was a result of this -- they wanted to see that final costume drop away [...]
I'm quite sure Kate isn't the first to explore the underworld of the seedy and the high-end strip club scene. But I got to hand it to Kate for her tenacity, openness and frankness (ok, I couldn't resist) in her fulfilling her grad school requirements.
Now the question is, did Kate do an assessment on whether her regulars would qualify as Alpha Males per Halley's ongoing and excellent guide. Or, perhaps frequent customers may be visiting the tittie bars at night but cruising the Reverse Cowgirl's Blog and links by day. Who has the anonymous stripper blog? And who's writing the addicted strip bar junkie blog? See. Lots of opportunities for new blogs.
photo: borrowed from comp image of stock photo library
I've finally done it. Well. Committed to it, anyway. I'm converting all of my 1,200+ music CDs to digital files -- AAC's (at 192k for those who care). My old G4 Cube will become an audio/music server. I'll still keep 800 CDs online in two Sony 400 disc changers. These still can be operated via the headless (no monitor) Cube using Timbuktu when I really feel like being anal about audio quality. I used Dick Dinkelspiel's excellent TitleTrack Jukebox software which allows complete control in an iTunes like interface of Sony CD-changers that incorporate Sony's S-Link control. Dick has been beta testing the new OS X version. Used by many audiophiles and businesses that play large quantities of CDs (bars, clubs, restaurants etc), TitleTrack Jukebox is the easiest way to inventory your CDs stored in these Sony changers by accessing CDDB. Plus, it actually uploads artists and album information to the Sony changers.
CDs converted to date: 388. I'm still a long way off.
12:36:20 AM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Sometimes it's just worth walking. Truthfully. Today, as I ticked off the tasks on my to do list I found myself in line at the local branch of my business bank. The line shuffled smoothly save the wacky couple trying to cash a check but somehow failed to have ID -- either of them. I'm thinking identity theft. Oh, no. Wait. Draft thefts. Check draft that is. I make my deposit and as I saunter out of the bank I glance across the sea of cars, parking places, construction and other exhibits of commercialism in progress and squinting I see the Starbucks. Coffee. Now that sounds good, I think.
Coffee. Now a true Californian would have leveraged the power of his wireless remote for the car. Sat comfortably while driving across the parking lot to get just that much closer to the Starbucks. Shopping centers span acres, you know. Oh come on! You've done it. Admit it.
But the day was almost nice enough to walk. Nice enough for me. So I cruised the sidewalk entertaining myself with the activities of the other patrons, workers and birds doing their best impression of panhandlers begging food from hungry humans at the food court. I enjoyed my coffee, the small talk with the Barista at Starbucks and made my pilgrimage back to the car. Nearly there I caught a quick glimpse of a scruffy dude dressed in painters overalls carrying a bag with a paint roller as he emerged from the local hardware store. We both craned our neck about the same time to take a second glance when simultaneously we called each other's name.
As I finished my coffee leaning against his extremely unobtrusive and low key auto, we caught up with nearly 8 years of "news" since the last time we chatted. He told me of his kids, fighting with the IRS and his voluntarily abandonment of the advertising and design industry that we both once were so active here in Orange County. He's designing kitchens and doing remodeling. He gets his artistic expression needs by painting portraits of families, movie stars, sports legends and other magnates. He smiled. Was very happy. And the time flew as we chatted.
The moral of the story? Not sure. But take a walk. You just never know who you might run into.
Photo: Danube River, Budapest Hungary 6/2002.
12:17:54 AM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Happy Birthday Wayne! It's my dad's birthday today. Actually, it's my brother Jim's birthday, too. So happy birthday to both of them. Being 3,000 miles away makes it tough. I'd love to be able to pull a great wine out of my cellar, drive over to their homes and sit down, chat and simply visit. Quality time. Simple. That's what's tough about a family that is disparate. But it makes those times that we do get together even that more special.
So to celebrate, I'm fff to a Grenache tasting today. Lots more to blog about. Have to find time this evening. Wish I was at the Jupiter/ClickZ Weblog Conference in Boston. Doc has pointers to the bloggers speaking there and those covering the event.
3:37:11 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
Back in March I wrote about the phenomena that had thirsty cheap drunks lining up at Trader Joe's store throughout California and elsewhere to pay $23.88 for a case of mass-produced free run glut wine. In my opinion this wine had been manipulated to appeal to the sweet tooth of the casual wine drinking Americans. Can anyone say how many spoonfuls of sugar?
Ex-Franzia box wine kingpin Fred Franzia and his Bronco Wine Company pulled off a marketing coup with its exclusive retailer Trader Joes when PR stories surfaced that American Airlines had to return thousands of cases of wine because corkscrews were banned on its aircraft. The story turned out to be a hoax. The wine, affectionally referred to as "two-buck chuck" became a runaway hit for Trader Joe's last year -- only $1.99 a bottle. But from a marketing point of view this presents a huge problem to Trader Joes: bastardize and cut the legs out of your $5-10 wine sales. At the end of the day -- not a very smart move.
Franzia owned a bottling facility in Napa and had been buying cheap juice from California's central valley and transporting it to Napa for bottling. Under technicalities of California's alcohol bottling laws, Franzia was able to label this wine as Napa Valley. Once again, deceiving customers with false or misleading labels. Many Napa Vintners have been up and arms and Franzia has been dragged through legal hassles as a result.
Well Fred has finally given in. Franzia and his Bronco Wine Group just closed a deal to buy the old Quail Ridge Winery on Highway 29 in the heart of Napa Valley. He gets the winery, land and brand. His plans? To sell a cheap -- ahh. value wine -- actually made with Napa grapes. With Napa Cabernet prices skyrocketing and a wine glut that has even major Napa & Sonoma wineries forcing to lower prices on recent vintages that received bad press (I saw a Kenwood Artists Series for $27 which normally sells for $50) Franzia will definitely find a market. Will the wine be good? His history just doesn't leave me with a good taste in my mouth.
3:18:32 PM permalink | | trackback disabled due to spam
The New York Post reports that Amazon and Apple Computer are in discussions regarding offering Apple's iTunes Music Store selections to Amazon customers. This would greatly expand the audience for iTunes Music Store while adding further value and convenience to purchasing music online from Amazon.
Reportedly Apple is working on plans to offer its iTunes Music Store to Windows users through its rumoured Windows version of iTunes. While all of this is still speculation and hearsay, it begs a number of considerations.
For example, the AAC codec that Apple uses in iTunes Music Store brought two primary advantages to Apple and its customers -- both the artists and music listeners. First, at a 128k the sound quality is significantly better than music encoded using the MP3 compression at the same bit rate. Second, the AAC encoder offers Apple, artists and the record companies better DRM (digital rights management - copy protection) options than MP3. (download this pdf file for an excellent document explaining MP3 and AAC)
However, in order to use the iTunes Music Store and to actually listen to AAC encoded music, users had to update to the latest version of QuickTime (6.2) which supports AAC. As far as I know, today the only widely distributed codec capable of playing AAC encoded files is QuickTime. This issue has surfaced recently for other home entertainment products that ultimately bring a bit of reality of the digital hub/digital lifestyle that Apple is so fondly promoting. The first is TiVO and it's home media option. The second is a niche player called Slimp3. Both these products allow streaming of music stored in iTunes to a home entertainment system. That means you could store music files on your computer but listen to them in your surround sound system in your living room, for example. But both of these 3rd party products don't support AAC -- yet.
And while QuickTime is the second most used "audio/video player" on the web, it has a small window of opportunity to gain switchers from the other primary competitors, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player, if it can expand its audience beyond the core Apple iTunes users. I'm confident that both Microsoft and RealNetworks are considering the inclusion of the AAC codec in its players. And I'm sure each could be nimble and quick in releasing updating versions, I think that if Apple can close a deal with Amazon, release its Windows version of iTunes and the iTunes Music Store and even negotiate a similar deal with AOL, Apple and its music offering might be flanked Trojan horse Windows users will happily let into their domain.
It's about 4:30pm in Japan as I type this and iChat A/V pops up in the corner of my screen with a phone like sound announcing that I have a call from another iChat A/V user -- in Japan. That's right. My second experience with iChat, introduced just yesterday and available for a free download (beta version) from the Apple website. It's 
For those readers less interested in things Macintosh or technology, I've moved 
I still don't have my 
Ok. I'm going out on a limb now. But Dina. Yeah, you know. The infamous gal behind the "
