Categories
Geek Stuff

It’s not about the hardware

Palm announced a new device today. I have been a devoted Palm user since my 1000, back in the day when they were called palmPilots and were owned by US Robotics (there’s some geek street cred for you beyatch).

My only thought on this is that it’s not about the hardware. Instant on is pretty cool but aside from that it’s a bunch of apps that may or may not work with my office docs, etc. If I’m going to the trouble of carrying a big screen the two most important things for me are to be able to handle every file type I might run into in a crunch, like tweaking a brochure design in Adobe, editing an audio file in Goldwave, or yes, just reading email.

The other major point that I didn’t see anything on was media files. If I’m traveling I want to watch movies and listen to podcasts, if the device can’t do that I’m not interested – and be able to download pics from my digital camera’s media card so that I don’t have to carry around more than one card, and can check them out on a bigger screen.

I wish them the best of luck because I am a diehard fan, but I don’t see myself throwing down $500 for it.

Categories
Brain Buster Geek Stuff

More Data than Ability

So I’m trying to put together my thoughts about a rampant problem. I keep running into situations where organizations have more data than they can possibly handle, and systems that are built to handle that data, but not the human capital to build and maintain the systems around them.

This started with my Mother’s day rant, where I asked why I couldn’t opt out of mother’s day mailings. You run into this all the time in airlines and financial institutions where you are forced to dial in your account or itinerary information, only having to read it off to a customer service representative later in the call.

Can anyone give me a good reason why I have to choose “English” every time I insert my ATM card into the machine? WTF? They know my address and account number, why not my chosen language?

I was complaining about United Airlines last week until Christopher Penn made me realize that there are far worse problems in air travel. A delayed flight is one thing, losing a passenger entirely is unconscionable.

For my entire career I had waited for tech to catch up to what I was doing, in the space of less than 10 years it’s gone from non-existant, to available, to being drowned in it.

On another note, I am loving Apple TV – digital photos (also buried under their own sheer volume) have been set free on the wide screen. It’s amazing how pictures that look ok at 4×6 look incredible on a big screen.

Categories
Daily Life Geek Stuff

Long Weekend and Apple TV

Just relaxing at home for the long weekend and I picked up an Apple TV with some gift cards I had lying around. It’s great just to have access to the iTunes playlists and let it grab photos off of the PC that are normally buried and forgotten. It’s like having a 37in digital picture frame.

Between that and on demand access to Heroes, I’m all set to go.

The latest M Show is up if you want to check out the best business podcast. With that, I am off to bed…

Categories
Daily Life Geek Stuff

24 on iTunes Finished, Now Addicted to Heroes

SPOILERS AHEAD!

So I just finished the last episode of 24. I’ve been getting them on iTunes and then setting my iPod on the treadmill rack at the gym to make the time go by faster. It’s been almost perfect, all I need is a bigger screen. I’ve got my fingers crossed that there will be a widescreen iPod announced at the developer’s conference next month – what a perfect birthday present for me. I’d get a PSP but having to transcode video is just not worth the time, and I prefer to stay legal.

I thought I’d have one more week of 24 but they did a 2 hour finale, which was very good overall, but I thought the last 10 minutes were a little strange. Hollywood Steve tells me next season is supposed to be a radical departure from everything before this.

Steve Garfield scored some cool info on upcoming series including a new Bionic Woman. As a card-carrying member of the shrine of Steve Austin, you know that I am in.

I’m also addicted to Heroes, having watched the first 6 episodes during my travel last week (what better to do on a plane, especially with the second leg delayed 3 hours). Enough with the guilty pleasure of TV, we’ll have to get back to some marketing tomorrow (or get your Marketing Over Coffee today).

Categories
Daily Life SalesForce.com SEO and Paid Search

Still off the grid

Home inspection tomorrow so things are still moving. Some quick things you may be interested in:

Google is cracking down on search arbitrage

I was unable to hit the WebInno event yesterday so I’m looking for a good writeup on what I missed.

Some rumors about Google acquiring Salesforce.com but I think those are just rumors.

A new Marketing Over Coffee will be out tonight.

Categories
Daily Life

Off the Grid

I haven’t posted and in a rare occurance The M Show is a day late. All for good reason – we have another offer in on a house (4th time’s a charm?).

I did get to run the camera through its paces at Hermosa Beach:

Cuervo Girls

(I do have a guy picture over there too…)

Categories
Brain Buster SEO and Paid Search

Advanced Kung-Fu Blog Techniques

Eric, Sam and Jason

Eric Schwartzman, Sam Whitmore and Jason Calacanis

Jason Calacanis delivered a great lunch keynote today. I enjoy the mix of straight talk mixed and the understanding of showmanship. I had a brain buster today when everything snapped into focus – he mentioned that you should keep watching his blog for something big regarding the death of SEO. If you read his stuff there’s been a ongoing thread about SEO being legitimate business or just another shady tactic like junk bond arbitrage and tax evasion. So perhaps something big is coming and guess who’s had a corner on the best SEO chatter (Google juice anyone?) for the past 3 months?

Categories
Productivity Booster The Marketeer

Google to buy Feedburner?

Dan York passed on an interesting rumor.

Categories
Daily Life

Communitelligence

The conference wraps up today and I have a dilemma. I really want to go over to Universal Studios to hang out but I looked over the agenda and there are no sessions that I can say “That’s a good one to skip”. That’s the best endorsement I can give for any conference. Hopefully we’ll stick to the timeline and wrap before 4pm so I can get myself a fake plastic Oscar for my desk.

The other related important stuff: I got to check out SkyBar. I need to pick up a striped collared shirt that I can leave untucked, and some better jeans.

Mike Tyson was having dinner there. There are a lot of critics out there but to me he’s still the young guy that went on an undefeated tear years ago that was incredible to watch.

Mr. Penn and I still cranked out a Marketing Over Coffee via Skype, looking forward to getting back to Studio DD next week.

Categories
Daily Life

Excess

Just some random observations today:

A friend of mine that works for a Fortune 500 company asked for some brainstorming on a contest: whoever comes up with the best name for the company store wins a trip for two to Europe.

From my hotel I can see Vivid Entertainment (they make enough on adult films to have a building near Universal Studios), I thought “Wow, that’s right across the street”, but then I counted – that’s 20 lanes of traffic.

And with that, it’s back to work.