Month: July 2003

Nothing like squeezing 50+ hours into four days of work to get you ready for vacation. I left things as tidy as possible at the office, and I found out about one of the coolest things I’ve seen: Remote Desktop Connection. I was recently upgraded to WindowsXP Professional on my office laptop. Now, after some quick assistance from a colleague, I have Remote Desktop Connection set up on my PowerBook. Fully functional control of my office desktop from my MacOS X machine (also available for other Windows machines, of course) means I only have to bring one computer with me… and it’s the one I prefer to use. At a later point, I’ll have to look into whether similar software exists to control my OS X desktop at home.

How to recognize blog software by its URL and, separately, deconstructing article URLs. Enjoyable reading for me. Scary, isn’t it?

How do you do it? I’ve got my rotating set of 4-5 passwords, one or two of which I try to use only in secure places, but it does get complicated when you need to remember one months later. We’re all still human.

For over two years, I’ve managed — first indirectly, then directly — CNET News.com Investor and a corresponding private-label financial website (and print) business, known internally as “Private Wires.” After several months of work, I’m pleased that our new arrangement has been publicly announced. CNET sold the private label business to Financial Content. In a very related move, FC will power CNET News.com Investor. My official quote on the latter development, from the release:

“We are committed to providing our readers late-breaking technology news and editorial coverage,” said John Roberts, Associate Vice President of Product Development, CNET News.com. “By partnering with FinancialContent, we extend our commitment to improve the user experience by providing integrated financial coverage of technology stocks.”

All true. It’s a better product for CNET, and for the customers who are migrating to FC… and I can now focus more on what’s important to me and the company: tech news.

Long review on a recent Nielsen/Norman Group report. I’m going to read this now. I already know I would love to read/hear Jakob’s response.

I don’t know if it is coincidental or not, but Tim Bray decided to write about metadata just days after Christopher Lydon’s interview with David Sifry, in which Sifry, too, spoke eloquently about the power of metadata. Bray hits a few notes I know from bitter experience, too.

Historically, the difficulty of collecting metadata at source has been generally large enough to outweigh the (potentially huge) benefits from collecting it.

(snip)

If you collect metadata by hand the most important lesson I’ve learned, is: Don’t try to collect too much.

Amen.

Tim Howard is going to be one of the Manchester United goalkeepers. The NYTimes article mentions how Kasey Kellar and Brad Friedel paved the way. Friedel was named the best keeper in the English Premier League for last season. He was a high-school classmate of one of my best friends, and my wife was a goalkeeper, so I have a signed poster from 1995 (thereabouts, anyway) of Friedel in a U.S. team jersey.

Printed text on the poster:
What part of shut out don’t you understand?

Handwritten note, for my wife’s sake:
From one goalie to another, never let ’em score.

Still one of our best wedding gifts…

I must have seen this linked on at least five blogs I read via NNW. So why not add to the fun? BBC: Loss of e-mail ‘worse than divorce’

Not scientific (800 techies), and not accurate (sponsored by Veritas, in an effort to sell more email backup software), but even the BBC knows how to draw the reader in with a bit of blather. My wife might think this line was written for me, though: “Electronic mail is playing such a key role in companies that most people start to get annoyed after just 30 minutes without e-mail access, the study found.” My Blackberry sures comes in handy there. 😉

It must have been amusing to write this CNN/Money story: “Nudity takes off“. My favorite quote?

Cost for a suite: $2,500 per week, including tax but not sun screen.

I shared this plumbing story with two colleagues at work today. I’m glad to read that all’s well that ends well. Not my cup of tea.