hitting the wire*

Some web apps I really like.

I seem to be perpetually in search of a FTP server I can abuse, so when a JHB based consultant offered to send me a large video file via "yousendit", I thought this was some new Jozi slang I needed to wise up to.

http://www.yousendit.com allows you to register for a free account (as well as some funky paid ones with bells and whistles) and upload large files for others to download when it mails them a link.  Free means files are wiped after a week, but hey, it beats finding other ways of sending 50MB files!  I promptly introduced 2 people in the US to it and am downloading the data they were battling to get me as I type!

Then I was reminded of what Vinny Lingham has been up to since he succumbed to lure of the US West Coast.  I stumbled across (manually, not using that highly addictive web app!) TechCrunch's 60 second elevator pitch site, where you can upload a short video of your talking head pitching your product or company.  Very cool idea!  There the rogue was large as life punting Synthasite! ;)

http://www.synthasite.com has to be the quickest, easiest, cheapest way to build and maintain a website!  Can't wait for an excuse to use it!

PS.
One more : http://www.compete.com/
"track your rivals. then each their lunch"  - love it.  Wish I'd used this when we were running Storm!

that's me.

Now this guy had vision!

This gem comes via Bretton Vine that electronic bloodhound of eclectic digital media trivia!
Dave

The Web Time Forgot (login required)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html
By ALEX WRIGHT

MONS, Belgium — On a fog-drizzled Monday afternoon, this fading 
medieval city feels like a forgotten place. Apart from the 
obligatory Gothic cathedral, there is not much to see here except 
for a tiny storefront museum called the Mundaneum, tucked down a 
narrow street in the northeast corner of town. It feels like a 
fittingly secluded home  for the legacy of one of technology’s 
lost pioneers: Paul Otlet.View this photo


In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of 
computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would 
allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked 
documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people 
would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files 
and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole
thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” 
— or arguably, “web.”

Historians typically trace the origins of the World Wide Web 
through a lineage of Anglo-American inventors like Vannevar Bush, 
Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. But more than half a century before 
Tim Berners-Lee released the first Web browser in 1991, Otlet 
(pronounced ot-LAY) described a networked world where “anyone in 
his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation.”

Although Otlet’s proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog  
technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it 
nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today’s Web. 
“This was a Steampunk version of hypertext,” said Kevin Kelly, 
former editor of  Wired, who is writing a book about the future 
of technology.
[...]

my pipe's bigger than yours!

Business Day have published an article under my name today.  I'd love to claim the word-smithing was mine and mine alone, but alas I only briefed the copywriter who has an alarming ability to mimic one's style! 

Roger, how about ghost-writing my blog from now on!  ROTFL!

Good article though - and I can say so shamelessly. ;)

Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates

I don't usually find the patience to read Robert X Cringely's posts, but I did on this one .

Was is it wrong of Jobs to drop the price of the 8-gig iPhone from $599 to $399 less than three months after the product’s introduction?  I'm undecided no on that.  Was it a strategic move aimed to milk early adopters?  I suspect so. 

Has he beaten Gates?  Depends on how you view life, but the numbers have to count.

"Apple is the best-managed computer company on Earth" - eh? how so?

caveat emptor.

Google replaces sniffer dogs.

Is there anything this bunch will not get involved in?!?

"The Mountain View, California-based company has emerged as a potentially useful resource for search-and-rescue teams because of its connections to the dozens of contractors that provide satellite imagery for its popular Google Earth software."

Article on IOL here.

Watch out Yeigo, here comes Google!

It is one of those immutable laws of business.  If you charge too high a margin, even if  you have a de facto monopoly, someone is going to find a way of stealing your market.  Ask Telkom.  The likes of Storm have made a good living out doing just that!

The likes of local entrepreneurs Yeigo and UK farmboys TruPhone have been beavering away to develop the ability to do VoIP over 3G or WiFi using one a bog standard cell phone.  OK, so one of the new bog standard phones (with WiFi/3G etc), but you get my drift?

Now when the Google guys set their sights on that market, you'd better sit up and take note, I don't care who you are and how smart you are. 

CrunchGear has an article on Google wooing the mobile phone manufacturers.

I finished reading "The Google Story" yesterday; you can't help being seriously impressed with these guys.  They are aggressively innovative, irrepressibly keen to take on huge challenges and have a war chest that is rapidly making Microsoft's look commonplace!

If Google intends taking on the cellular industry with a free phone (and they have managed to make a serious amount of cash with the concept "free"!), the cellular industry and others who are challenging them better take a good hard look at the threat to their business plans.

The Red Bull X-Alps. These guys are having an incredible experience!

A race along the Alps.  Krippenstein (Austria) to Monaco.  800km.  30 athletes.  They can walk/climb or paraglide.  One ground based supporter, who is not allowed to use motorized or powered flight.  The race runs 24x7, snow or shine.  First one to Monaco wins.

A colleague at Storm, Keith Mould, who paraglides himself, pointed me to the website where you can follow the whole thing live - even using Google Earth if you choose!

The tracking data is apparently sent from Nokia N95 phones the guys carry.

I imagine days like this make all the pain worthwhile!

Tired of typing in Outlook Contacts?

Just dawned on me that it is an exceedingly long time since I had to manually type in an Outlook Contact, or even use Copy and Paste to do so. Yes, I know Joe, I am still using Outlook and fully intend to sign up for the detox programme when someone gives me one of those round tuits, but for now I'm staying with the devil I know.

"So just how do you create Outlook Contacts Mr Smartypants?"
you may well ask.

One of the biggest plusses of having signed up with LinkedIn for me, is the access I get to the Outlook plugin which allows me to "grab" text from a .sig at the bottom of someone's email into a  Contact window with just one click. (yah, zis is korrekt jah.  Just vun klick!).  A quick visual to see that the plugin has placed the text correctly, maybe one or two edits, and "save" and it is done.  Synch to mobile and we're cooking with gas (until said mobile finds that 1,000+ detailed contacts more than it was designed for! <sigh>).

Here we go, another 2,000 words worth of visuals.

From here:

(see the "grab" button top right?)

To here:

in one click.  Unless of course the person uses an image as their .sig... :(

Check out LinkedIn.  Not quite as funky as FaceBook, but hey, it is supposed to be a more "corporate" type of thing (and their smallprint is supposedly not quite so aggressive). ;)

Yo! Heads-up folk. Are you at risk from Facebook's smallprint!?

Facebook it seems has some dodgy parts of its terms and conditions. 

One of the main clauses that concern:

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

I was first alerted to the issue a few days ago by a post on MyADSL by Tom van Aardt.  Then I got this from Bruce Mallinson.  A search on Amatomu for posts regarding Facebook reveal no posts discussing this issue... can it be we're all happily clicking on the "I Agree" link without reading or comprehending the T's & C's?  Pete Carruthers would kill me and charge me for the "CrashProof your Business" again if he knew that I have been "signing agreements without reading the smallprint" of late! :(

And here's me suggesting to people that they seriously consider using Facebook as a tool to build communities of interest around their business.  Does this sort of thing lurk in other T's & C's on other web apps out there?

VoIPTopia @ the June 2007 CT 27 dinner.

I was honoured to be asked by Dave Duarte to give a brief presentation at the last 27 dinner in Cape Town.   The guys from MissingLink have made a video of my 5+ minute rambling available on Youtube.  Before (& if!) you watch the clip you should know that I showed the "VoIPTopia" clip which we created for the Broadband Summit in Feb, which I posted about here.  (that is me... I've just stopped shaving so often)

The last time I watched myself on video was when I participated in a roleplay where I was a CEO of a company guilty of some disaster like a toxic chemical spill on the N1 being grilled by John Bishop (those of you younger than 40 may not recall the sharp, incisive, rather intimidating style of the man).  I won a dare & a case of cider by holding up a mini "Hi Mom" banner at the start.  Ah me, I must try and dig out the VHS clip and get it digitised.  Would be a good for a laugh I'm sure.

Henk was most amused that my notes were in the form of a mindmap - there is no way I can speak from a prepared text:

that's me.