Web/Tech

Frys

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I was driving through Atlanta when the Garmin GPS suction-cupped to the windshield of the rented Chevy began to glow.  My stomach was doing flip flops as I realized that I was closing in on a Frys.  Many years ago I discovered by accident the wild west of the Palo Alto Frys and since then I’ve been drawn to Frys like I’m drawn to, well, fries.

Frys

The Atlanta Frys seems to be bigger than most Wal-Marts.  I knew I was home when a guy walked up to his car, hit the remote and a second after hearing the beep of his car alarm, the engine started.  The guy just grinned.  You need remote starting in Atlanta to warm it up on those cool winter nights.

Frys_cafe

I was tempted to stop at the cafeteria, for a Jolt and a Moon Pie, but I had promised I wouldn’t be gone long. I decided to walk every isle to see what was new.

Motherboards Frys has something for every geek.  Building a computer?  Check out the Wall of Motherboards. Network

Building a network?  That’s 64 feet of gear stacked five shelves high.

Oscopes

Need an Oscilloscope?  There must be $100,000 of inventory in this store alone. 

Resistors How about an isle of nothing but resistors and capacitors? Probably more parts than all the Radio Shacks in Georgia carry. Refrigerators

Frys isn’t just about electronics though. The have more refrigerators than the average Best Buy.

They have 24 feet of shelves full of TV wall mounts.  Not TVs, just wall mounts.  Who knows how many actual TVs they have in stock.

They have 88 feet of phones, but that isn’t counting cell phones or the 14 feet of VoIP, video and conference phones. I particularly liked the looks of the Ojo Phone by Motorola.

Nascar1

Speaking of appliances, they of course had a vacuum cleaner section and a large display of Rumba robotic vacuum cleaners.  But who else stocks the TracVac, a robotic, remote controlled NASCAR vac that is ". . .so fun. you’ll find yourself throwing stuff on the floor to use it!"  You can get the Lowes number 48 vac, or Jeff Gordon’s number 24.

Powerstrips

Throughout the store there were special displays of random things.  Like the display of 10 outlet power strips.  Each display (there were at least two) were 4 feet by 4 feet by 5 feet high.  I wonder if the TSA would have let me carry one on the plane?

Checkout

The best part of Frys is the checkout lanes.  In my picture you can see 34 cashier stations.  To get to one of the stations you walk through a maze of junk food, gadgets, batteries and gag gifts.  What you can’t see in the photo are the 36 cashier stations on the other side.  That’s right – at full capacity they can check out 70 people at one time.

The most amazing thing?  I didn’t buy anything!

Spiremedia advice for non-profits

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In November I asked for help from anyone who wanted to help a few local non-profits with their websites.  The demand is greater than the supply, so if you want to help you can still email me.  I asked my friend Mike Gellman for advice.  Mike started SpireMedia in 1998 during the dot com boom, and he survived the bust and has a great business that has customers such as Echostar, MapQuest a bunch of the Colorado ski resorts.  I admire Mike’s perseverance and creativity, so I asked him, "What should a non-profit with a very limited budget do for a website?"  His answer was so good I asked if I could just publish his email.  Here it is:

Here are my thoughts on non-profits. The first thing they should do is see if one of their volunteers knows how to make web sites. Some of the best non-profit sites have come from people are truly passionate about the organizations. Plus, they will always be available to update and maintain it.
Next, they should start contacting local web firms, especially smaller, newer ones, to see if they have a non-profit budget or want to develop a marquis site for exposure, access to donors, or display in their portfolio. A lot of the newer firms need live sites that will display their talent. They may decide to do the site for free or at a majorly discounted rate. Many of these companies will also have a rudimentary content management system that they include, which will allow the non-profit to update it themselves.
Finally, if they can’t find a donor, they should consider using some of the inexpensive online site building tools like Godaddy or Yahoo Small Business. These tools offer templated designs, content management, and if necessary, e-commerce for anywhere between $10-$50/month. Once established, they site can be managed by an administrator who doesn’t have any web knowledge.
Overall, non-profits need web sites that will provide up-to-date information. They do not need to be too extravagant AND they definitely should not take large amounts of money from their budgets that can be spent elsewhere. The previous three options should get them where they need to be.
— Mike
Thanks Mike!

Happy Zune Day!

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It’s even nicer than I expected!

Update 1 There is new Zune software, it doesn’t plug in to Windows Media Player.  The screen isn’t much bigger than a video iPod, but it looks a lot better.  That’s my opinion and everyone else who has seen the two side by side that I’ve talked to.  The software did a great job of pulling in my old playlists and now it is searching for all my missing album art.  Very cool.

Update 2 I’m still very happy with the Zune.  One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that the Zune software can monitor multiple folders for new content.  What this means is that you can use a podcatcher to automatically update the Zune with podcasts.  I’ve done something else with it that I couldn’t do with iTunes, as far as I know.  I set up a directory on each of my computers called Zune that I sync using www.foldershare.com.  Now I can drop a photo, video, mp3 or podcast into the directory on any of my computers (including the FJ!) and it will automatically sync to the Zune next time I plug in.

There has already been a lot written about the Zune so it should be easy to find plenty of information online, but many of the early "reviews" were written by people who already had a bias and didn’t own a Zune.  The website Zunescene.com has a good list of reviews and while most people seem to love their Zune, it does seem fairly balanced.  There’s also a blog by one of the Zune Team members that I just discovered.

Here’s where I see this going.  The Zune is the first mainstream, connected media player and it is going to evolve from here.  I imagine that the Zune will be updated with new firmware throughout its lifespan, just as the iPod has been updated.  With a built-in WiFi radio, all sorts of new capabilities are possible.  Right now it is a bright-screened, better sounding, easy-to-use serious competitor to the iPod.  I can’t wait to see what updates are in store over the next few months.

Where did iTunes go???

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This afternoon I tried to start iTunes on my home computer and discovered that the icon that I keep in my task bar has gone missing.  Same for the Start Menu icon.  Digging deeper, I found that the executable is gone too, though the DLLs and my music are still there.

Now I remember that the new auto-update process kicked in last night to update iTunes and Quicktime, so maybe it failed.  Either that or iTunes has figured out that my new Zune will arrive next week.  Apparently some new sites will be launched with the Zune.  Check this one out and click on the tall robot.  The people-eating gumby creatures are fun too.

Update:  I guess I won’t be reinstalling iTunes after all, or at least not easily.  In case you can’t read the text of the error message below, it says "A later version of iTunes is already installed.  Installation of this version cannot continue."

Ituneserror

Update 2:  Video iPod for sale.  Available late next week.

Update 3:  The new updater doesn’t actually run the install program.  My shortcuts didn’t point to the install program so they didn’t run the install program as iTunes expected.  When I noticed that the installer had created new shortcuts, I was able to complete the installation.

Update 4:  Video iPod still for sale, available late next week.

Soapbox and YouTube

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By now it is old news that Google is buying YouTube.  By coincidence, I guess, I received an email tonight from Microsoft inviting me to try out Soapbox.  Soapbox is Microsoft’s answer to YouTube.  You can go to the site and request an invitation – I put mine in a couple of weeks ago.  It’s strange that Microsoft doesn’t own the www.soapbox.com URL – it’s owned by The Motley Fool, one of the earliest and best financial sites on the web.  Maybe Soapbox is just a code word, but for now you can get to it by going to http://soapbox.msn.com.  At the moment http://soapbox.live.com doesn’t work, which seems odd too.

There aren’t many videos on the site yet, but more are being added by the minute.  I haven’t spent much time on YouTube, but one of the things I like about Soapbox is the ability to browse videos while a video is playing.

I’m not sure if I can embed a video in this post, or if everyone will be able to see the video, but I’m going to give it a try.

Video: Xbox 360 Wireless Ad

Did it work?  I’ve got to get one of those wireless steering wheels for the FJ!

When I was growing up we had three television stations and no home video recording or playback.  I won’t be surprised if my next TV has an RSS reader embedded in it to make it easier to subscribe to all the content that is going to be available.  By the end of the decade I expect to be able to watch almost any movie or TV show whenever I want.  Most will be free and the rest will be cheap.  The promise of cable was that we’d see more narrowly focused channels – that brought us the fishing channel.  Internet TV is going to be broad and narrow at the same time.  I’m personally looking forward to the "Bluegill fishing on Kentucky Lake" channel.

Online on the Road Again

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To be called a "Fellow Nerd" by Tom Evslin is pretty cool, but then he goes on to explain better than I did why it matters that I was able to listen to Internet Radio on my drive to the airport last week.  Be sure and read his posts Internet 2.0 is Open Spectrum and We Do Need a Gigabit Over the Air.  I also just rediscovered his post Backstory on Open Spectrum Epiphany.

Besides being a successful entrepreneur, Tom is the author of Hackoff.com and he kicked off My Way, The Entrepreneur Network which immediately began to lose focus after he asked me to join.  To quote Tom, "You can’t herd cats or entrepreneurs but you can aggregate blogs.  Participants in this network are experienced company founders who post about the joys, pains, and hard-earned lessons of startups – and whatever else is on their mind."  I guess the "whatever else is on their mind" part covers my posts about speech recognition, the FJ Car Computer project and an upcoming post on WiFi Rabbits and why they are even more important than Internet Radio.

Rabbit_in_the_leaves_1

Thinkgeek.com

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I’m sitting in an airport, and I just placed another order with ThinkGeek.com  (Thanks Fi!)  Thinkgeek asks for a comment after every order, and then they display a random comment from someone else.  I got this one:

1000000 bottles of beer on the wall, 1000000 bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, 111111 bottles of beer on the wall.

-Ich

Just remember, there are 10 kinds of people who get binary jokes: those who do and those who don’t.

Great PocketPC navigation applications

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I just discovered a great application for my Treo 700w Windows Mobile Device.   Virtual Earth Mobile (VEM) is a tiny mapping application that connects wirelessly to Microsoft’s MSN Virtual Earth.  Moments after downloading the app directly to my phone, I was typing in addresses and getting directions.  I’ve tried other applications that required me to load maps to the phone, and I never had the right map when I needed it. This application gets all of its data from MSN, so there are no maps to load.

It also seems to work world-wide which is a lot of fun.  I typed in "Spain" into the find field, and got a map of Spain.  Besides viewing maps, a click of the stylus will overlay aerial photos.  Give it two addresses and it will give directions formatted for the small screen of a mobile device.  You can even find local points of interest such as "restaurants."

If you happen to be reading this from your Windows Mobile Device, you can get the CAB file direct from http://www.viavirtualearth.com/VVE/Gallery/VEMobile/VirtualEarthMobile.cab

The developer, Jason Fuller, not only has released this as freeware, but he’s made the source code available too!  I think this is going to be one of my favorite applications.  Thanks Jason!

Lookout

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I just saved enough time looking for a document in one of my many email folders, that I now have time to write this tip.

I’ve tried Google Desktop, MSN Search and a couple of other products, but the one I use daily to find stuff in my email, on my computer and on my network is a strange little Outlook add-in called Lookout.  I say it is strange, because while the company was acquired some time ago by Microsoft, it also seems to remain available as a stand-alone tool.

If you are still using the built-in search capabilities of Outlook, you’ve got to try this.  It is lightning fast, reliable and will save you hours of hunting for that old email or file.  If you want a simple search tool, that doesn’t bring along a lot of other capabilities, give Lookout a try.

Help Wanted

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Gold Systems is looking for a few great people.  In particular we’re looking for a Regional Sales Manager for our Northwest territory.  We need someone who either already lives in the Pacific Northwest or is willing to relocate at their own expense.  The details are here.  We’re also looking for an experienced Support Engineer, and we’re not going to trust our customers to just anybody, so we need somebody really, really good with the right ideas about customer service.

Some of the best people at Gold Systems have come from referrals, either from people who work here or people in the community who know something about our culture.  I’d love to hear from you if you have the qualifications or know someone who does.

We’re not for everybody.  We’re customer focused to a fault sometimes.  We work in a niche that is exciting (Speech Recognition) but everyone is surprised at how different it is from other areas of technology.  If you already are in the business, or you really like a steep learning curve with a cool technology, then it might be the right place for you.

If you like the high-energy excitement of a cube farm where you know all about your neighbor’s medical problems and their troubles finding a good baby-sitter, because you can hear everything going on in a five-cube radius, then Gold Systems isn’t for you because everyone here gets their own office.  (Except for Lori, and she has her own skylight.)  Of course, remote people usually work out of their homes, so in a way they still get their own office and no one cares how they dress.  Not that we care very much anyway.  Ties are only worn under duress when we visit customers who are also forced to wear ties, so we wear them to show our support for their plight.  Otherwise shorts and t-shirts are just fine.

We hire nice people who get their jobs done.  When we screw up and hire someone who just pretends to be nice in the interview, they don’t tend to last long.  We have a lot of people who have been here five years and even ten years, so we don’t expect people to work 80 hours a week until they burn out and quit.  People do work hard, and sometimes late nights and weekends are required, because our customers tend to pick strange hours to try out new software.  But we give a generous amount of vacation and we do our best to maintain some balance in our lives.

We have an amazing customer list, and with a few exceptions, they love us.  If this sounds interesting, check out the link above or our general help wanted page.  And I don’t know who’s photo that is on the "Letter from the CEO" page.  I interviewed for the part, but I guess they decided I didn’t look enough like the typical CEO.  That’s fine, I never aspired to that anyway.

Video iPod

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It seems to me that
there are more than the usual number of new technologies coming to market that
could make the next few years really interesting.  I’m writing this on my way
back from visiting customers in New Jersey and I’m listing to my newest toy, a
video iPod.  Apple isn’t the first to make it possible to watch video on a
handheld device, but they’ve made it easy.  First some stats. 
  • My iPod has a 60 GB
    hard drive in it. That’s the same size as the hard drive in my fairly-new Dell
    laptop.
  • Right now my iPod has
    3238 songs on it.  I buy more CDs than ever and I purchase music from artists
    that will never have a real recording contract.  I enjoy my music more too
    because of how I can easily create playlists that capture exactly what I want to
    listen to at the moment.
  • 13 videos (I said I
    just got it!)
  • 12,540 photos.  That
    is every single digital photo I’ve ever taken and my first digital camera was a
    Sony that wrote to floppy disks.  My niece Lisa looked at every single one of
    the photos the day after Thanksgiving.  It took her about an hour, so she was
    speeding through, but it was fun to see photos I had forgot about when one would
    catch her eye and she would ask about it. I did the math, that’s about 4 a
    second.  I just tried it myself and it is easy to go that fast and still get
    some idea of the photos.
  • 38 unabridged audio
    books from Audible (two are Stephen King books so these are not small
    books)
  • 4 podcast
    subscriptions – I’m not really into podcasts.  One of these is really a video
    podcast.
With all of that,
there is still 29 GB of space left, which is quite a bit more than is available
on my laptop.  If I need more space on the laptop, I could always mount the iPod
as a second hard disk.  (No, my laptop is not an Apple.  Windows XP and the
iTunes synchronization software works great together.)
 
You can
already buy a few TV episodes and music videos from iTunes, but in a very short
time much if not most of what is available on the TV will be available as
easy-to-sync content for the iPod and other players.  Trust me on this, the
introduction of the video iPod is going to be a big part of the move to make it
possible to watch whatever you want, whenever you want it and not just on little
screens but also on your regular internet-connected TV.  USA Today had at least
3 or 4 stories today about the changes that are sweeping the entertainment
industry and what it means for the studios and
networks.
 
Speaking of
the little screen, I haven’t tried to watch a movie on it yet, but everyone who
has played with it has commented on how great the screen looks.  For about $20 I
bought a cable that makes connecting to a TV as easy as plugging in a DVD
player.  The image scales nicely but again I haven’t tried to watch a movie this
way.
 
Someday this
device will end up in my Museum of Cool but Obsolete Technology, but for now it
is making me think a lot about how the world is changing, and I’m getting to
listen to some great Bluegrass in the process.

Air Skyping

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Like most people who travel a lot, I
read USA Today on return flights.  The November 30th edition had an article by
Kevin Maney about Air Skyping.  That’s where you connect to the internet from
30,000 feet and then talk to people on the ground via Skype or some other VoIP
soft phone.  He says El Al, SAS and Lufthansa will sell you a broadband
connection for about $30 a flight, but they probably didn’t foresee how they
were enabling free phone calls to the ground when they set it up.  I agree with
Kevin that there is great potential for air rage as passengers beat the guy who
will not shut up the entire flight across the
Atlantic.
 
In the Newark
Airport today I heard a guy in the bathroom complaining loudly on a cell phone
about his boss and how he is NEVER rewarded for doing anything right.  He’s
under constant pressure and is not appreciated AT ALL.  He sounded like he was
about to blow a gasket and I wondered if he realized that everyone in the
restroom couldn’t help but hear his complaints.  Surely the person on the other
end could hear the toilets flushing all around but he didn’t seem to care.  I
assumed that the guy was probably a sales person in a slump, or an IT guy who
didn’t get noticed unless something wasn’t working.  Sad to say, he was wearing
a TSA uniform.  I’d hate to be trapped next to him on a flight as he
vented.
 
Kevin believes the
cell phone ban on airliners has saved lives, not because of the potential to
interfere with navigation equipment, but for the anger that it could provoke
amongst the fellow passengers.  Kevin’s blog is here.  He’s a funny guy who
really gets technology, despite the mean things he once said about speech
recognition.  He’s also the brother of Dave Maney, a successful Colorado
entrepreneur, song writer and a good friend of mine who, as far as I know, has
never said anything mean about speech recognition.