mvp.

why mvps rock. i love technology, but i definitely have a lot of catching up to do in terms of being technological. my blog has been a great way to learn basic html and working with components for the web. i was stymied at how to get a blogroll up and running on my site; and even though i found blogrolling.com extremely helpful and the actual roll easy to create, it was getting it into my blog template that had me flummoxed. last week i had dinner in hartford with three microsoft mvps: david berry, kathleen anderson, and ron chamberlin. both david and kathleen are frontpage mvps, and it dawned on me half way through dinner that they could probably help me with my little problem. david explained that it was actually pretty easy, just save a page from my blog and open it in frontpage, put the cursor in the wysiwyg page where i want the blogroll positioned and then click on code to see where in the template to paste the script from the blogrolling.com service. took me a little while to get it just right in terms of column widths, etc. but it felt great to do it myself (with a little help from my friends). b.

product support.

speaking of my new camcorder/digicam. there was an issue playing .asf files in windows media player 9; basically no matter how long the video it would cut off somewhere between 3 - 4 minutes. a quick web search revealed that there was someone who had posted the same issue on the microsoft.public.windowsxp.video newsgroup. i went back into wmp9 and was able to click for more information in the error message. once i had the error code, i did a search for that code and found a patch had been released back in april that fixed the issue. installed the patch, and voila - all was right with the world. then it was a matter of posting the pointer to the patch back in the newsgroup, and seeing a happy poster also get the fix. b.

new toy.

picked up one of these on sunday. much better demo/expo can be found here. going to import some video i shot today into movie maker 2 and see what i can do. my inner spielberg is screaming to get out. b.

air conditioner.

working in the tech industry sometimes blinds you to the innovations happening in other industries. with the temperature in seattle being between 80 -90 degrees for the last couple of weeks, we finally broke down and decided to invest in an air conditioner. we also picked up a couple of fans in order to help circulate the cooler air coming in. the pleasant surprise is that the air conditioner is really quiet (a nice hum), has a timer, temp control switch, and a remote control (figure it would come in handy to turn it off in the middle of the night from a prone position). needless to say "in window" air conditioners have evolved since the big, bulky ones of my dorm room days (knoxville, tn is pretty brutal in the summer). the fans, however, are what really caught my imagination. they not only stand up straight, but each one has a little green "eye" that let's you know it's operational and as it slowly sways back and forth i feel like a couple of extras from battlestar galactica have stumbled into my living room. not the cylons mind you, but a couple of cute little bots who were on the good side of the galaxy. the big box fan that drowns out all noise within a 2 mile radius has retired to the basement... b.

soul twin.

kitty blog. b.

traffic again.

image complements of snipping tool. oh - and when i left the office most of the green spots were red and black. bad. bad. bad. b.

blog break.

sometimes you just need a couple of days. btwn east coast jet lag, oodles of laundry, and a pile of bills.... b.

home entertainment redefined.

movielink + liquid + fujitsu tablet + t-mobile hotspot = home away from home entertainment. b.

www continued.

found a great blog in spanish. b.

lost.

the car i rented today was supposed to be equipped with neverlost - hertz's gps service. alas it wasn't and i was on any own to get from boston to hartford. probably the best 4 hours i've spent on the road for some time. (ps_it's only supposed to take 2) if you're familiar with boston, i drove on massachusetts ave. from dalton st. to the rhode island state line. passed mit, harvard, historic homes, and plenty of beautiful new england countryside. once i hit rhode island i caught highway 6 west into connecticut. passed a town that was incorporated in 1720 and another in 1786. washington didn't become a state until 1889. my state is still such a kid compared to this side of the country. highway 6 works it's way to hartford, by passing more small towns, farms, and friendly looking homes. i wanted to knock on a door or two and say hi. i did get lost - or at least off the right path probably three times, but managed to work my way back. can't say i won't decide to use neverlost the next time i rent, but at least for today being lost was a hell of a lot more rewarding than being on time. post-conference depression. it was like the last day at summer camp. a group of us hanging out in the hotel lobby, chatting in a circle adding one person after another until the entire group moved to the lobby bar. i enjoyed the last couple of days far more than any other conference i've been to (except gnomedex, which i am now anxiously awaiting in july), and i hope to keep in touch with the folks i met there. my conference buddy, michael was such a blast - i'm trying to figure out a way to route a trip through toronto so i can pop in and say hi. i also plan to buy dave weinberger a big box of krispy kremes next time i see him - i'll flesh out the reason behind that another day. oh - and whoever started playing remains of the day on my tablet last night - you owe me a movielink rental... it expired before i was able to watch! ;) playing around with newzcrawler. not sure if i'll buy after the trial period. heard some positive things from john about using gator in outlook express. either way i've finally realized that there is sometimes more than one way to read a blog - one of those ways being offline when you're stuck at the airport. eeewwww. i have ISSUES with the ky warming liquid commercials! some things just don't need marketing - right?! right?! b.

hindsight.

even though i gave scoble a hard time earlier today. he did have a valid point wondering why i was here representing microsoft bloggers. first, i have to say i'm not here representing microsoft bloggers. just as one blogger can't represent all, i can in no way be an accurate representation of the many folks at msft who blog. with that said, it would have been great to have more of us here representing the diverse community of microsoft bloggers. i'm not sure if there is a comprehensive list of folks who work at microsoft and blog but here are a few...got dot net blogs. other daily reads for me include: better living through software. and simplegeek. and scoble (linked above). there's a decent list here and here. at any rate ~ i hope at the least, i made the home team proud. b.

world wide web.

martin sat behind me during the day and next to me at dinner on day one of the jupiter conference. finding his blog reminded me that i had taken a very americentric view of the blogosphere. making an effort today to find some blogs in spanish ~ being it's the only other language i can read in besides english. ps_ he is sitting on the IT panel right now, discussing the challenges of supporting blogging/bloggers for an IT organization. b.

law of the blog

panelists: Arik Hesseldahl, Senior Editor, Forbes.com Denise M. Howell, Counsel, Reed Smith Crosby Heafey LLP John Palfrey, Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School Catherine E. Reuben, Partner, Robinson & Cole LLP Maurice J. Ringel, Esq., Founder & President, Ringel Law Group, PC moderator: Mark E. Young, Communications Counsel, PARTNERS+simons representing corporate policy perspective - denise howell representing acedemia - john palfrey representing advertising and mktg legal issues - maurice ringel employement lawyer - catherine reuben representing the journalist point of view/employee point of view/non-lawyer/american business perspective - arik hesseldahl denise begins. here we are the lawyers to bring the thunder clouds down on all this enthusiasm. what is fundamental that businesses need to understand when they consider going into this new arena. the minute you open a website you are immdiately acting as a publisher, broadcaster, writer, entertainer. as soon as you do that you are subject to the liabilty of those fields. people do it anyway because the price of not being on the web is just too high. best to be your own voice on the web then to let folks co-opt you. so if there is risk invovled with static pages - those risks multiply when you add in the nature of blogging. interaction, speed, exposure. and the root of all litigation: interaction. can the risks be managed? the next logical question is what are some of those risks. folks - going to pause for some intent listening of this panel.

i post this.

because i suck at taking pictures and dave doesn't. enjoy. b.

first presentation: jupiter conference day two

in case you're looking for coverage. b.

scoble is a bully.

and i'm really happy we're on the same team. b.

weblogs creating a secondary syndication channel?

what impact weblogs have on traditional media. hot freaking topic. rafat ali vin crosbie jeff jarvis elizabeth spiers i am going to live vicariously through elizabeth spiers. she says: big advantage of having a blog is no censorship. i do have a filthy mouth. rafat: begins with "my name is michael moore and i would like to thank the academy for this award, i have about 100 bloggers in solidarity who will stand behind me when i say always on sucks and i stand by that". rafat: the economics of content the non-obvious advantage the profit motive for a formal operation is too high the open-source etic google - repeat 100 times before bed honesty/neutrality: understand what you are not, for example i am not a consultant. blog + database + research reports = big business, blog + nothing = hobby jeff jarvis with the word of the day - "nichefication" (nichification?) of the media b.

where weblogs matter

jason shellen. write read connect write what is a blog post? an atomic unit of personal expression. audience? audience of one. yourself. friends and family. expectation that at some point people will read. photoblogging; moblogging; video blogging; audio blogging. audioblogger read writers get to know their audiences pretty well. avid blog readers: clamor for other ways to take in the information news aggregator - newzcrawler "blog reading" "read this to me": use to play blogs on your ipod plays a sample blog from boing boing "gecko gloves for humans" the compilation of a blog post is changing and evolving renewed interest in photoblogging connect if you can't find it then it might as well not be there where blogs are located on the web and linked play a crucial role one of the ways folks find them is through blogrolls blogstreet - find your neighbors business blogs can help your company build a community links in and links out that are very key today people find blogs primarily through google (i would guess) announcement - "we are not taking blogs out of google" blogs for business? where can businesses connect with blogs? a tool for collaboration with teams a tool to see what's going on in the industry a possible external tool to represent your company speak in a human voice (cluetrain) and a blog can be that human voice "i hate it when entities talk" let me clarify a couple of things blogs have been around a long time, especially in terms of internet years. i believe the proliferation of the form of what we now think of as blogs kicked in around 1995 long standing community, one with a code of ethics, best practices, etc. metafilter example boing boing blog - contributors/community i would argue that doc's blog is a community - b/c of the community of comments kottke.org posted about matrix - turned on comments and 400+ does joni mitchell have a blog? are the businesses going to pave the paradise of blogs and put up a parking lot while blogs may be relatively new to business - they are not new to the community and businesses need to be mindful of that which businesses are blogging? external: macromedia; groove networks; msnbc internal: cisco system; sun micrsosystems; leland stanford junior university eating your own dog food. next version of blogger aka - blogger in google = b.i.g. google employee = googlers google love notes - emails from customer support that are nice - bizarre search requests - "google saved my dog"

admit defeat.

there are a lot of bloggers covering the event, and a couple are doing such a kick ass job i'm going to point you there way: this man knows how to blog a conference. all the folks chime in. more listed here. b.

crashing.

g'night kids. b.

blogging technologies and platforms: today and tomorrow

pardon the fuzzy pics. picking up my steady cam on the next break. doc searls, dan bricklin, anil dash, bob frankston, michael gartenberg, john robb, and jason shellen. woah. doc begins by asking who is using what to blog. userland? mainla? blogger? movable type? then asks how many are happy with those tools. jason: blogger is playing catch-up. we had a small team for a number of years. the space we were in - we felt like we were building a tool for web designers. the tool was picked up by the community and spun into user who were more mainstream. 1.5 mm users who aren't all web designers. it means our tools are changing. means we are more akin to geocities in terms of the folks that are using our tools. we have to rethink what we are doing. rolling out new tools as an investment for the future. what is exciting is to say "hey there is a great new thing that will tie us into the community" and within a week we can do it. tracking tools. the fact that we're now a part of google means we can bounce ideas off of new teams. i think a core area of focus for our future is definitely on the community side. the directory of bloggers didn't scale well. so now we can scale because we have the servers. i agree with tima when he said that tools may fade to the background. frank: i want to distinguish between two opposing issues. one is about making the blog better through the tools (linking, etc) we also need to be open to looking at blogging in a much more general sense. there was a time when the web was confused with the home shopping channel. i think folks still have the confusion. we need to make sure we open up how people think about the web. recognize that we are at the very earliest learning stages. dan: now that i am at a hosting company i may have a very different perspective than i would have had before. the website is important. and the blogging is part of the website. you have to integrate the two. the blog tools automate a lot of the tedious housekeeping. in the old days the folks who could figure out html could get something going. people get to think in their subject area and not the housekeeping of the tech behind it. we don't know what the features are yet for the new tools. i think one important thing is media forms. using pictures is important. there are many ways to communicate. starting to put those things together will be as important as adding grid lines and better formatting to excel. anil: we are continually playing catch-up with what people are doing to have the tools complement what the people are doing. michael: moblogs. we need to talk about devices beyond the pc. the magic number for devices can be two - three. the ability to create/post/blog from multiple devices. john: working on sync between multiple desktops. we are looking at adding additional things - a very slick windows interface. also a mac interface. rather than being in a browser you are in a desktop application. been looking at the p:p system. not looking at the standard copyright infringement system of p:p. something that allows you publish large files off your desktop and then not have to break the bank with hosting fees. i find that my time is much too valuable to have a weblog in lots of different locations. i'd like to write once and publish in multiple places. opening comments complete and the dicussion begins.... anil: people define themselves by the media they are consuming. you have a very full rich image of your life online and then you can choose who can read what you publish. frank: i think there is a very different social experiment. people create a persona. doc jumps in. steers the conversation to digital identity. anil: a blog is not a publishing tool it's a social contract. you have a relationship with your readers. dan: in the business world who can/will read it is going to become crucial. doc: so you as a developer selling your product to the marketplace will have a concern with who is reading it. anil: permalink means you need to update. it's a promise to add an entry. and stay current. folks - i can't keep up. taking a break to listen. b.

good or bad.

you decide.

panel iv

the tech behind the blog. if a company was to set up an environment for employees to blog. what is the ideal back-end for this? what is the it dept willing to support? what needs/features will the bloggers desire? knowledge as a corporate asset. captured/found/re-used with self expression. mike admundsen is on the panel. he's super happy with his trip to tech-ed last week. mike along with another era employee drove from kentucky to dallas for teched and then turned right around and drove from kentucky to boston for this event. ah - bless his heart - the joys of a start-up. question on the table now. will there be specific blogging applications or will there be blogging tools within a variety of applications or a mix of the two? the room is pretty quiet. this seems to be the time of the day at a conference where folks begin to slip away a bit. i hope not though, because the group speaking now represents a great deal of expertise in terms of the tools for blogging. mike from eraserver, adam from easyjournal and john from userland and bill from MyST are all kicking it right now. question of the day: is it niche (neesh) or niche (nitch)? bill is doing a lot of disagreeing. i like that on each panel there has really been an open dialogue - not just a lot of bobbing heads. folks are throwing out some opinions and thoughts and folks are catching them an tossing them around. conflict is good. ending note: content is king and design is everything.

memory lane.

wax nostalgia.

post-lunch post david weinberger panel

check this out. "scorpion" aka major chris chambers is on the panel right now. topics that seem to arise again and again today: what's a blog? blogging and journalism (or truth as dr. davivd puts it) company voice and personal voice internal and external halley's up. she's amazing. ps_ i always dreamed of one day becoming a small japanese dumpling: dreams really do come true. don white of peidmont preferred properties is speaking. he has one of those soothing southern accents. having a hard time focusing on what he's saying because it makes me think of my family (in tennesse right now with my ill grandmother). not sure i ever shared that i'm from a southern family. focus. beth, focus. halley just said "customer intimacy". i like that. i find it bizarre and amazing that the u.s. army has a blog.

dr. david weinberger

why blogging matters. it really really does matter. we know in this room that blogging has excited the internet community, the web community, the business community, the journalism community in ways that we haven't seen until the beginning of the internet. we are trying to figure it out. we have a real sense that this is important. when people talk about the bubble - you know they immediately have missed the importance of the internet. the scary bubble thing that went away was the right bubble thing to go away. b/c people who were thinking about the internet as a commercial space were thinking about out it incorrectly. there's another bubble that is there that is going to keep getting bigger and bigger. stuff emerges. what's driving this? it's because the internet is a conversation space. it's not just markets that are conversations. the internet is a place. the dreaded question: what is a blog now? daily. a few paragraphs. reverse chronological. linked in. links are interesting because they point outside of the weblog. "i don't insist on trapping your attention the way the commercial sites do". blogs are little acts of selflessness. voice. not technology. if not technology then what is it. rhetoric. social phenomenon. something more... rhetoric: the importance of writing badly. assume that you are reading a first draft. readers tend to forgive the weblogger. forgive the broken link. social: constructing a self. it's not usenet. a place on the web where i get to speak everyday. my own place on the web that is permanent and persistent. a place where i cam talking about myself. creating a social self. a place to serve as a web self. a proxy for the self. are bloggers authentic? topic is vexing and annoying. we have a view of the self that gets us in trouble. we have an m&m view of the self. we have an inner core and and outer self. ethical notion that attaches the inner to the outer. on the web there is no inner self. if your self on the web is this persistent place that you talk. where is the inner self on the web? we can't make sense of things like authenticity. the relationship of you to your webself is like the relationship of an author to her character. we are writing ourselves into existence on the web. and with it comes all the virtues and flaws of being a writer. which selves? favors good writers. pushes for self exposure. people who are willing to expose more of themselves. "halley is the avatar of pushing the private into the public". favor the unemployed. "thank you bush - thank you". blogging and journalism. let's not talk about that... let's talk about this. blogging and truth. objectivity claim: the world as it is. strengths - multiple stories, expert sifting, community baseline weakness - journalists are humans objective journalism isn't. subjectivity: our world as it is. strengths: acknowledges observer, acknowledges situation, captures more weaknesses: scattershot, raw, and individualstic why am i boring you with this? because i have to bore you with something. blogs allow multi-subjectivity. we can now read this. we have a blogosphere. we have links. we can find 'em. you don't just have these individual subjectivitys gathered around talking to themselves. you can now read from all over the world. multi-subjectivity. gives subjectivity a chance to show the world as it is - which objectivity has claimed to do for so long. if everyone has own voice. some thing: "rumors, lies, gossip, misinformation, chaos. this is an attack on knowledge" who isn't happy with blogs? businesses that have confused themselves with fort. control the business - the marketing - the partners - the management. weblogs cannot be stopped from punching holes in the walls. it's gonna happen. weblogs are frightening to a business model that relies on selectively releasing information. gatekeepers of knowledge. matrix is nothing but descarte brought to the screen. knowledge became so anoretic as to become dis-interesting. what is knowledge on the web? knowledge rooted in human experience. jim's recommendation of a kenmore washer as opposed to the kenmore mktg site. people talking to other people. community of users sharing information. "the cluetrain said branding doesn't work - clearly we were wrong" alienation. here's why i think weblogs are exciting. everyday you get confronted by real knowledge with blood running through its brain. blog plug: akma weblogs exist in a new place. a public place. we invent new selves. a place that represents the reflected nuances of our life. that is a big deal.

shaky.

my panel session is over. phew. i was so freakin' nervous. this is an amazing room of people i'm with and i hope i was able to add some goodness to the day. okay back to work. panel: managing a business blog boston globe - created an hr blog for job listings. boston works section of the globe. build a spot just for hr professionals. collaborative weblog with three folks authoring. scan the web finding information useful for people working in hr. etc. cluetrain = book o' the day. differentiation between a blog voice and a corporate voice. biz stone: being able to find your voice is not immediate. you have to do it every day. it's like jogging. start a personal blog. start messing around. find out what works for you. now talking about security issues vis a vi blogging. how do you maintain a completely private blog? doh! batteries going dead on my ir keyboard. zounds! my kingdom for two aaa's. going to switch to journal and inking for now so i can capture what's going on.

day one.

tracking each presentation of the jupiter weblog conference. *disclaimer* doing my best to give you verbatim - but most of this should be consider paraphrasing, rather than direct quotes. ps_ standing room only. welcome and opening remarks: best and brightest individuals with regards to weblogs - remember the buzz about home pages and geocities? amazing to see how far we've come. transformational capabilities. change the pace the purpose the impact of business communications. firewalls - intranet - extranet - ecommerce all became common terms for business. so much to absorb and work through - do blogs always create opportunities - what are the legal ramifications? today or tomorrow's dicussion may create new language for business. ~kathleen goodwin, conference chair. send me questions for the "experts panel" tomorrow: bethg @microsoft.com business weblogs: overall creation of personal websites is declining. in regards to blogs. have something to say. beta internally. commit core group of bloggers. love is a better master than duty. if you mandate blogging, it will come across. bottom line is weblogs are an extremely powerful form of communication. it is not just enthusiasts who have too much time on their hands. companies needs to realize that their employees will blog and it is better they embrace than turn a blind eye. ~ michael gartenberg dave winer: every year is the year that weblogs are new for some group of people. perhaps weblogs are about to happen in business. think about computers: programmers - librarians/lawyers - and then on to business. at wired in 1994 - communication deceny act: happy ending - didn't make it through the courts. we wanted to show that the web could be used for something positive. asked readers to write in. the fact that a site is external to world is somewhat irrelevant to its existence. i.e. blog does not have to be external to be a blog. find that person in your organization that sends mail with links to everyone that's your natural born blogger. walt mossberg was asked what is the difference between a blogger and a reporter - his answer "i'll get back to you next year". cluetrain and weblogs being flipsides of the same coin. i think weblogs are personal websites - websites in 2003. in 2007 the weblogs of today will look quite different. users are getting more sophisticated (which is half of the equation) the other half is the technologists are learning how to make the technology easier to use. why i went from being a ceo at a technology company to being a fellow at a university - "now we understand how the software should work" zooming from 1996 to 2003 let's talk about the riaa. going after individuals. weblogs at harvard law. question from the gallery: "did you say blogging is journalism?" answer: damn good answer, but kick me for listening so hard i can't capture. okay now we're talking about jason blair. we've quickly moved to the blogging/journalism debate. bummer. back to dave: don't get religious about it. "nbb" = natural born blogger. how do you tell the reluctant ceo it's okay to blog. that's somewhat antithetical. basically it may not fit the organization, maybe they shouldn't have blogs. it's like asking the question should the organization provide email to all their employees. comment from the gallery: you can't participate in the conversation if you aren't welcome in the room. question: if you have an editor is that incompatible with being a blogger? answer: if you have this sense that you are going to get approved, perhaps it isn't a blog. degrades to a very degrading place. back to dave: an employer does have a right (if they are hosting and sponsoring a blog) to request that a post be taken down. then you have to decide if that's somewhere you want to work. much of this is a moving target. some things are worth going to jail for. if you're at the conf. be sure to check in. in the room with denise howell. cool. the gentleman next to me has a flying-toaster tie. that is so cool. it was my first after dark screen saver on my mac.

nervous.

tomorrow i'm sitting on a panel at the jupiter weblog business strategies conference. not sure i really belong. i'm hiding in my hotel room tonight because i feel a little bit like an intruder. the real bloggers are more interesting than i am. they develop software ~ they create new tools ~ they hang out with the pope ~ they write books ~ they're on t.v. ~ they may change the course of history ~ they build community ~ and. and. and. and i have so much more i'd like to do with my life... b.

fill in the blanks.

flew into pittsburgh yesterday. was exhausted. narration as promised. random pictures left over from my trip to nyc. loved my morning working at battery park. pic of radio city music had on the way to dinner with local user group leaders and mvps. and a sneak picture of the staging for the exhonerated which i saw at the bleaker st.theater. battery park radio city play flew jet blue for the first time ever last sunday. my flight set off an interesting chain of consumerism which i will document now. for those of you who may be new to jet blue they allow you to watch live television via direct tv satellite broadcast. caught an episode of vh1 classics: the 80's. saw some great videos which made me wax nostalgic. echo and the bunnymen and the sugar cubes were among the bands. at any rate a couple days later i make my way to barnes and noble and pick up a copy of ocean rain. definitely my favorite e & the b album. the next day i decide to check out the new apple music service. (yes i work for microsoft, and i think it's crucial to understand and experience what the other guys are doing. makes me a better at what i do.) i was able to buy a couple of sugarcubes songs just in time to head back out on the road. was fun all around and amazing to think of all the companies that came into play over the course of my week. jet blue trip to target and best buy. a photo essay. i love the ways in which technology is continually reinventing itself. alienware gameboys graves mickey tv hello jukey my trip. i flew to pitt on us airways. showed up 2 hours early just in time to nab the last seat. 30b. sitting in the back of the plane always makes me anxious. that's why i'm stuck with united most of the time. i have premier status and usually sit in economy plus which is like the crack/cocaine of the flying world. it's not about loyalty it's about leg room. 6am seat 30b riddle me this. i'm not allowed to take anything sharp on the plane. however, after searching my suitcase you lock it up with a plastic tie. thank goodness for a well stocked mini-bar. problem solution b.

work giggles.

find more of these here. b.

long island.

during the amazing windows experience stop on long island i snapped a picture of myself in one of the kiosks. bethx2.bmp heading out to pittsburgh on friday. love usairways - they have laptop power in all their coach seats ~ yippee. movies and email all the way baby! b.

help.

i can't make the tablet blogger work. can't get on my ftp server. and can't seem to find the time to do some things with my blog that i'd like to. 1. i want to add a blogroll 2. i want to make my photoblog look more like my blogger one 3. i want to be as a cool as chris p. when your body gets the blues. saw the two hour documentary on pbs last night. i was a little skeptical as i thought it was a little "infomercialish", but at that same time it was interesting to me. basically in this day and age people don't go outside enough, move enough, and refrain from eating too much enough. common sense, no? i'm going to check it out. give it the eight week test and all that. animatrix. found it on pay per view today. saving it for dark (it doesn't get dark here until almost 10). promise i won't give anything away. movielink. my new favorite thing. while in cleveland i downloaded two films - err "rented" two films. reversal of fortune and far from heaven. once you download the flick you have 30 days to view. once you start to view, you have 24hrs before it expires. since i have a tablet pc with 40 gig it's pretty easy to have 2-3 movies at anytime waiting on my hard drive. at any rate - what i'm getting at? well - i was stuck in the jet blue terminal for 6 hours (long story) and so i propped up my tablet like a movie screen and watched far from heaven. then i watched reversal of fortune. having it on a tablet made it feel like a personal movie screen rather than when i've done the same using a dvd player with my laptop. and now i no longer am bummed about not having a dvd player with my tab. the price is reasonable: $2 - $4 per film - and they have a good selection of first run and classic movies. i'm curious to see if it takes off (given the fact that there are some "less expensive" methods to view movies on your computer) - but for now it works for me. b.

roadie.

four days worth of stuff to write about. i wish i could think blog. i do it all day. walking around thinking oh i need to blog about this or blog about that. but right now, being on tour, working remotely and talking to a lot of folks i pretty much get back to my hotel room and crash. wednesday. worked at the battery park starbucks for most of the day. met a nice guy who is running a start up. a tech startup. he was a cool guy. we shot the breeze about one note which he is beta testing. we also ended up chatting with some folks from london who were interested in the tablet pc. before i left another guy came over to chat about working on wifi. regular little tech community. i think as hot spots pop up more and more people will look forward to going out with their computers. it's like being alone, together. dinner with the local nyc and new jersey user group leaders was a great evening. a couple of the guys have been ibm experts since back in the day. fun to hear stories about big blue's early days. also fun to hear the ups and downs over the years with microsoft. thursday. the play was amazing. amazing. not sure i've said lately how much i love doc's blog. going to see him in a little over a week. friday. i drove! in new york city. found a great shop for gals that would like to look cute even when they're doing the w. w. saturday. stood at a kiosk today for seven hours. took down some comments from the people i chatted to. figuring out a way to post my notes. b.

theater.

in NYC. i love this city. walked from the upper east side to canal st.and back. found heaven on 39th and 5th. where will i be thursday night? catching this play: the exonerated. saw a documentary about it awhile back and was hoping i could get a seat. review to follow on friday. jp stewart sent me this. check his out. using my favorite starbucks website to pick out my worksite tomorrow. b.

headphones.

god's gift to the leery traveler. b.

monday.

looking for local bloggers i came upon this. it is a neat way to find new blogs, by geography. i realized while i'm on the road i should see if i can meet up with some of the folks who blog around the u.s.a. - i'm afraid i'm too late to hook up with the cleveland folks, but i'm going to make an effort from nyc on. if you're an ncy blogger and your free for coffee weds and/or thurs this week - send me mail: bethg @ microsoft.com. if you're a long island blogger and you make it out to the rooseveltfield parking lot this sat or sun i'll be there with the loews movies in motion tent showing off some microsoft stuff. stop by and say hey. trains, buses and automobiles. today i took the cleveland rta train to the airport so i could ride a shuttle bus to the car rental center to drive 40 miles to find out that weight watchers is closed on holidays. okay, so no weigh in for me. but i did find some other bloggers who share in my efforts. check out the mayor. he's one of the folks who like me recently joined chris pirillo's brain trust. great conversations going on - but i must admit i feel a bit out of my league. doing a whole lot of reading and learning right now... zoo. while heading back to return the car mentioned above i took a detour to the cleveland metropark zoo. am i the only one who finds this a little disturbing? i stood there until he twitched a little just to make sure he was alive. the zoo was amazing btw. going to work on my second photo story with the zoo pics. chances are it will be too big for me to post here because i took 60 plus pics and 10 plus movies. i'm going to work on it while i'm on the road and then burn it to a cd for my nieces. sort of a random present i guess, but it sure beats a pack of postcards. b.

tired.

so tired. going to take the night off. back tomorrow. b.

ribs.

goodness. five days of ribs ribs ribs. i had a sample yesterday. take a look... big pig.jpg winner.jpg kudos.jpg lunch.jpg table for one.jpg viva la minis! saw a sneak preview of the italian job thursday night. loved it! it's fun, fast, and smart. sort of like an ocean's eleven for gen y. which is funny because i think the original of this was somewhat a homage to the original of that. make sense? had dinner last night with five local user group folks. two leaders from the greater cleveland pc user group, two leaders from the local mac user group, and one fella who runs a newsletter type user group devoted to pcs. really nice people who like the group in philly gave me some more insights into the wows and woes of windows. one of the coolest things i learned last night is about a program called computers assisting people - check out their website. hoping to see more programs like this in the future! b.

recipe.

ingredients. one minolta diamage x. one 128mb kingston sd card. one dazzle 4 in 1 card adapter. one fujitsu tablet pc. one microsoft travel mouse. one stsn internet access box (love hotels with high speed). result: my first photo story ever! go easy on me. i'm a aspiring director - emphasis on the aspiring. the plan is to get pretty familiar with all sort of media type activities this summer and see if i can really capture what's going on while i'm on the road. enjoy. cleveland (medium quality) oh and if you wonder what the heck i'm going on about. check this. b.

red eye

why o why did i take the red eye? just finished my fifty minute tour of the rock and roll hall of fame. i have a seriously short attention span. the u2 retrospective rocks (literally). talking to strangers can be a good thing. lots of nice folks helping me out today while i explore my new home for the next five days. b.

head hurts

blogging from my phone. the mind reels at all the possibilities. b.

exsqueeze me?

i had recently switched from t-mobile to attws. i had 30 days to "test" and either keep/cancel my service with attws so i decided to hang on to t-mobile just in case. needless to say i am now back with t-mobile. not for the reasons you might think. as far as customer service, features, signal strength, etc attws is comparable to t-mo. i switched because i discovered (after 3 weeks of use) that you are not guaranteed an SSL connection via mmode. it seems that they assign ip addresses dynamically each time you log on and there are only so many secure connections to go around. at some point your phone can no longer get assigned one of these ip addresses and you become phona non grata. since i use outlook mobile access that was the one deciding factor between the two services. i won't bore you with the process i went through to discover this issue, however, it dawned on me that it's amazing the high level of knowledge and comfort with technology someone would have to have in order to navigate much of what is going on in the wireless space. needless to say there are a couple of sites that help me do so: check out phonescoop and howard chui forums if you find yourself looking for tips, tricks, and inside info. couple of great sites run by a couple of great guys. b.

phlog.

groovy. had a filling replaced today. did you know that fillings have a life span of 15 - 20 years? made me feel really old to think i have fillings that are older than a lot of the folks i come into contact with during the day. my dentist gave me a radio headset to listen to and wouldn't you know it john cougar's (nee mellencamp) "hurts so good" came on at some point. oh the irony. met some amazing people while in philadelphia last week. had dinner with six folks who represented a spectrum of computer enthusiasts and was able to listen and learn a lot about their views on windows. when i have a chance to sit down and get it in writing, i'll post some of the things we talked about. b.

six.

who knew the number six could be so darn important. the six on my cell phone is grumpy and i need to push it super hard, otherwise nothing happens. jeez - how many sixes can one person need to access?? well it turns out a lot. pick a number tomorrow and see how many times you find yourself using it on your cell phone, whether it's looking up a name in contacts, making a call or sending an sms i bet you end up using it a lot more than you'd expect. b.

extreme makeover.

all time t.v. low for me. watched extreme makeover on abc. the gal i saw was karen. if you're so inclined they have before and after pictures on the abc site. after several surgeries, hair/makeup makover, and multiple sessions with a personal trainer there was a dramatic difference in how she looked. all the arguments for and against plastic surgery, reality t.v., and society's emphasis on looks aside the thing that disturbed me the most about this show was having the fiance of karen say repeatedly how beautiful she looked after her extreme makeover ~ and never once, not once! saying, but then again i always thought she was beautfiul or something along those lines. sad. dr. cornel west in the matrix reloaded! saw him speak a few years ago and was awestruck. when i saw matrix reloaded in philadelphia the audience in the theater with me was predominately african american. when the face of dr. west flashed on the screen there was a burst of hoots and applause. when i saw the matrix relaoded in seattle last night and his scene came up there was nothing. no reaction. i'm assuming either a. folks knew who he was and didn't feel anything either way or b. no one knew who he was. sad. b.