Archive for the ‘Random’ Category
I want to give a big virtual high-five to Dave Rahn and my associates at CustomChannels for the great article written about them in today’s Denver Post. While the radio industry itself suffers, its outside ideas like custom playlists on CD quality formats and genres targeted to listeners specific tastes that really stand out.
CustomChannels has a great crew and I’m proud to have collaborated with them on so many unique opportunities!
I read an interesting article on Yahoo! Tech news today following a case of a mayor in a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina who has decided to begin posting public notices online rather than using local newspapers. The mayor claims to have saved the city budget a surplus of $13,000 by utilizing online advertising rather than papers and it has caused quite a stir in the local media since state law previously required all public notices to be in newspaper form.
I think this poses and interesting conundrum: posting public notices (such as re-zoning and land developments in this case) online obviously shows a clear-cut pricing difference than newspapers which arguable saves everyone money, but at the same time folks who don’t have internet access (do they even exist anymore?) could miss out on important public messages.
I’m all for the death of newspapers and not just because I’m an online aficionado- I happen to think the newspaper had plenty of opportunities to change its pricing model, but like many dying media industries, refused to do so while it was still profitable. Evolve or die, no?
Since an earlier post I wrote involving the legal crack-down on file sharing network, the Pirate Bay, I’ve been keeping an eye on pertinent music and file share issues to see if there’s been any backlashes. Through the power of RSS I’ve seen a couple notable articles indicating that some independent record labels have actually lowered their prices as a result.
One particular example I read about on Wednesday was from Fat-Wreckchords, an indie punk-rock label that distributes pretty much everything I listen to. Said label owner “Fat” Mike Burkett, “We just think that having a very low CD price is a fair way for scene supporting music fans to support their favorite independent bands and labels.”. Amen brotha. They’ve lowered their CD prices from the original low low $10 price to $8, determined that nothing on their catalog will cost over $10.
Having read statistics that most people who download music illegally also purchase the most music, I think this move makes sense, as I would imagine a lot of them are hoarders like myself. I think this is a pretty smart move by independents and hope to see more of it.
In an interesting article on Yahoo! Tech this afternoon, web founder (who helped develop the HTTP technology that runs the web) Tim Berners-Lee, spoke to a consortium in Madrid about online privacy. The discussion in question was a new piece of software that will allow ISPs to track demographics and deliver advertising to customers. Quoting Berners-Lee: “The postman does not open my mail, the telephone company does not listen to my telephone conversations. Internet use is often more intimate than those things.”. Word.
It seems like a lot of broad-band technologies seem to be taking a more pro-active approach to their advertising. I mentioned earlier cable television networks plan to do the same thing- gather localized demographics about what you watch and use it to target advertising.
Y’know, so many services gather incomprehensible amounts of data about us wherever we go, the pessimist in me thinks this argument is just a drop in the bucket even from the Founder.
Today, a ruling in Sweden put four members in charge of the file sharing network, the Pirate Bay, in jail for up to a year along with damages fees of $3.6 million each. “We can’t pay and we won’t pay,” says Sunde, one of the four, because there was no money; all of the files were delivered for free except for some small donations accepted in order the run the hardware.
Y’know, sometimes I have to tip my hat to my overseas pseudo-anarchist buddies at the ‘Bay. It takes a lot of guts to power such an enormous community of people who are essentially subverting the law. The site was down for a short while when authorities seized their data-center, but it is back up now running from a new location.
Pirate Bay – I salute your ballsy, but reckless efforts toward the OpenSource/OpenWorld mentality. Hopefully one day we’ll all live an a Star-Trek-ish, utopian world where everything is free for all who participate, but I wouldn’t count on it too soon.
Wow, I love new openness of our new administration. Mentioned in the President’s press address yesterday, there are a suite of tracking tools available at the new White House website.
You can check up on up-to-date issues via the blog, get details about the cabinet, and check out a whole range of pertinent info regarding the budget and recovery phases. There’s an interactive timeline of how the recovery project is progressing, and a complete readable breakdown of the president’s new budget (its even organized by department!). Also new is a spot where you can vote on the relevance of the next questions asked at the upcoming town hall discussion.
Very “web 2.0″. This definitely looks like the start of a true 21st century president.
This weekend I received a report on some of my financial investments and much to my amusement, in addition to information about my losses, my finances crew sent me a comprehensive guide to stress relief. I guess you know what state the economy is in when your finance advisers have to become mental health professionals to keep their customers from going nuts.
I made my first real investments a little over a year ago back when I had a “real” job, and have to say I’m not so pleased with the results so far. Those little red “loss” numbers just keep climbing every day. I’m literally banking on President Obama to turn this economy around.
I do believe, however, its been a mixed blessing for my business. Since the economy is in a down turn I’ve seen a rise in people hiring temp/contract agents to get work done and when things are looking down, people are often opt to go for cheap marketing methods to boost their business. Viva freelance graphic and web design!
I’ve been having a lot of mixed results with my internet connection lately, and based on a conversation I had with friends last night, I’m not the only one. It seems like its been a roller coaster of connectivity lately and, of course, it always drops out right when I’m uploading something important for a client.
However, I figured before I jumped all over my lousy internet provider (rhymes with “Pomcast”), I’d do a little bit of research. I’ve become a huge fan of the site Speedtest.net- it has some really cool visual bandwidth tracking tools, keeps a running track of your connection rates, and best of all its entirely free.
Using their tools over a couple of days testing from different ping locations, I got a pretty good feel for my connection’s performance and delivered a convincing case to my provider. So far its been running much better!
Today I was thankful for a simple yet often taken for granted function included in most PC software- Find & Replace. Upon realizing I’d have to update one line of code on 250+ pages on the site I was working today, I promptly opened up the Find & Replace panel, pumped out a simple macro, and bam! 250+ pages updated in a matter of minutes. I repeated the process again to clean up 1000+ records in the accompanying database.
I remember when computers first got “copy & paste” functionality. I was head-over-heels for Wordperfect when I found I could duplicate a whole mess of typing in a simple keystroke. Often I think 1/4 of my working life is spent copy and pasting. Lets consider how much time that could actually save!
Lets say I save 20 seconds of typing code every time I copy/paste. Lets also say I do this around 25 times a day (which is probably a low estimate). Thats an average of 8 minutes a day saved. If theres 260 work days in a year (in a 40 hour work week- yea right), thats 34 hours a year! Multiply that times 8 years at the computer grindstone and thats 4.6 entire days copy/paste has saved me. Wow- thanks simple keystroke macros!
I read an interesting article at PCWorld.com today about printer ink sent by Eric at IndieArsenal. This investigative article shows some interesting methods for testing just how much ink is really left in the cartridges and how much that ink actually ends up costing you over the course of owning your printer.
One fact I found especially interesting- on average, a gallon of printer ink costs $4731! Given a gallon is a lot considering most cartridges only contain 8-10 milliliters, but that sure puts paying $3 for a gallon of gas into perspective.
My Shiny New Printer
I think this is a great article. I just recently purchased an all-in-one printer for around $60. Less than 5 years ago, that price would’ve been unheard of, however the replacement ink costs almost $30 a pop- about half the cost of the printer. Maybe there’s something to those little shops that refill your old cartridges…