michael coates, a pragmatic evangelist
April 30, 2006 Leave a comment
I found this interesting. This guy says he can diagnose an injury by reaching back in time to the moment of the injury.
MSNBC: “Chiropractor claims to travel in time”.
“Back”, chiropractor, get it? Sorry for the awful pun.
Seems his state (Ohio) regulators are very interested in him as well.
March 29, 2006 1 Comment
It’s all about the user. I addressed this earlier in “What do you call the uber personalized site for information snacking?” and I’m starting to see more and more in the ‘sphere about what is getting to be a monumental shift.
I’m still thinking about this and am looking for partners interested in working on it with me.
The user wants to snack on their data; whenever, wherever they are. This could be email on the PC or SmartPhone, video on the phone while on a plane or on the big screen while at home, a Personal Control Panel that aggregates all the user’s desired content with access from anywhere (think MyMSN or My Yahoo).
This PCP could include digital content that’s best presented in a 10-foot view, accessible with Windows Media Center and your wide-screen TV. Or it could include links to your music, downloadable to your PC or phone from your place on the web.
It’s bigger than a portal; it’s our user’s life. The user at the center is the main tenet of Information Snacking.
What do you think?
February 28, 2006 Leave a comment
I’ve been meaning to write this article, and here it is!
Thanks to Hisham for “How-To: Image Windows XP with Ghost and Sysprep”.
February 28, 2006 Leave a comment
In my spare time (mostly defined as “electronic devices off” in airplanes), I fold like a madman. If you’ve been by my office in Building 18, you’ll see a number of models that I do while on conference calls or during meetings. It helps me concentrate.
My first Origami hero is John Montroll, who publishes several step-by-step books on a variety if high-detail models. He does an amazing work with these, and not just simple models either; he does dinosaurs, insects and a variety of animals. He does a black widow spiders, a lobster and an elephant (with tusks!). Incredible stuff. Check out his books; my favorites are “Prehistoric Origami” and the book from which I learned: “Animal Origami for the Enthusiast”.
My NEW Origami hero is my son, Connor, who let me teach him how to fold the Crane. He is now going on to demonstrate the art to his school class.
I’m waiting for my boss’s, boss’s, boss, Vic to report back on his progress with his kids.
February 28, 2006 Leave a comment
Paint.NET is an image and photo manipulation software written on the .NET 2.0 Framework. It’s designed to be used on computers that run Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Server 2003. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. It started development at Washington State University as an undergraduate senior design project mentored by Microsoft.
February 27, 2006 2 Comments
What’s in a name?
I’m torn on this.
For quite a while, I’ve been touting the next generation of the web as a completely personalized experience where users could ‘snack’ on their own information, when they wanted, where they wanted. I still believe this is true, and I’ve called it “Information Snacking”.
On the MIX06 blog, I posted “Services as a Platform”, where I describe ‘information snacking’ as what users do when they access their data on a customized site. I also describe the ‘new’ generation of the ‘whole product’ paradigm in “Extend Your Reach”; where a whole product includes several form factors, providing the medium for users to access their aggregated data.
Om Malik had a guest column by Robert Young in 2006 in a “Can MySpace be Beaten?” post, where he described the ‘console for consumer control’ (‘C3’) as the MySpace ‘beater’. In short, this is a customizable dashboard application that contains only the items the user is interested in, for them to ‘snack’ upon when the mood strikes them. Without the critical mass and network appeal of MySpace, is this really a ‘beater’?
The ‘sphere was quick to adopt ‘Web 2.0’, but has long eschewed ‘Information Snacking’. I keep talking about it, though, and I use MyMSN in that way. Their mobile experience isn’t as bad as some, but not as good as others. Still not a ‘complete product’, by my definition.
So, if not C3 or some MyVariant, what do YOU call the uber personalized site for information snacking? Where is this site?
February 15, 2006 4 Comments
It has been six months since my last blood work. Happily, my IQ is still higher than my cholesterol level; no: I’m not dumber; the cholesterol is down two points from the last time: “IQ and Cholesterol Level”.
January 24, 2006 Leave a comment
This came out a few days ago and I missed it. CBC: “U.S. cinemas back out of Soderbergh’s ‘Bubble’”. Theatres in fifteen states refused to show the film.
This is the story about a film released to theatres, cable and DVD all on the same day. I first noted the concept of early low-value DVD releases in “Theatre and DVD: Mind the Gap” and the opportunity to do a Pay-Per View deal that included a follow-on DVD in “Watch the movie tonight, "the DVD is in the mail"” Then I got crazy and advanced the possibility that you could pick up a copy of the DVD at the theatre.
It would seem those days have arrived, at least a year before I expected. Moving at the speed of data, I guess.
January 18, 2006 Leave a comment
I’ve been toying with running a contest lately. I think about it every time I find myself waiting for, or on an elevator.
What would an elevator algorithim look like? How would you measure it? How to get the highest customer satisfaction (for transit; not elevator music) possible? Some thoughts:
Of course, you’ll need some sort of service-level agreement in place for the one poor sod who gets caught up in ‘the system’. This person will wind up riding up and down, up and down, potentially never being in the largest group until there’s no one left on the elevator but him.
How would you do this?
January 14, 2006 1 Comment
Scary Chase Online phish in my inbox today:
Naturally, we don’t want our online accounts to be hacked. However, I don’t have a bill pay account with Chase.
For fun, I thought I’d assess the quality of the phishing attempt. It’s a goodie; but not perfect. The fact that the “Service” at risk list appears as a bulleted list is expected. But but the actions / information are part of the same bulleted list, which is suspect. If you ignore that bit, the only other suspect bit on the solicitation email is the URL to which the “Login Now” button posts; only available after a “View Source”. Non-technical users may well click this link. If they do, they haven’t done themselves any harm as of yet.
I captured the URL to which the button will send you. The page you are sent to is a legitimate Chase path: “/colapmgr/auth-logon/login.htm”. The domain and port are bogus though: “http://chase-online.xyzzy.cn” (xyzzy to mask the actual domain). Clicking on it sends you to this page:
The fact the page is served over http (and not https) should clue the user. If not, the .cn domain suffix should raise a red flag. Besides those two deficiencies, EVERYTHING else you see on this page is legitimate: the images, all the links to get more information, sign up, view demos, even the user id / password retrieval link. The links and images direct you to the proper pages at the Chase.com site to support the illusion.
Watch your inbox and be careful.
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