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Wednesday, July 09, 2008

 

Old Times

Sorry if it's been such a long time since my last post.  There have been a few things occupying my mind lately that are neither here nor there.

I daresay that IE8 is superior to FF3, having used both the past few weeks.  Microsoft's Internet Explorer on my Vista machine runs much smoother and requires less memory than Firefox.  Opera 9.5 is falling by the wayside.  

Without extensions, IE8 performs quite well.  Firefox, though it may try and be standards compliant, can't quite match IE8.  Firefox, I'm beggining to realize, is merely netscape with some useful extensions
Lastly, and we're talking the only browser I've used exclusively for the past 5 years, Opera is beggining to be the middle of everything.

Opera was the first to pass the Acid 2 test, and continues to adhere to the W3C standards.  I'm a huge supporter of any program that adheres to recognized standards, unfortunately Opera is seeking set-top-boxes such as the Nintendo Wii and DS to further its financial goals.

I used to write exclusively about these big three, as well as the smaller contenders, but unfortunately they've gone by the wayside.  Let us stop being homogeneous and have our developers support one another.  Only then will we ever see the same

Friday, June 20, 2008

 

Browsers? or SaaS?

The online world has become more complicated in these past two years.  What used to be a question of "does it support AJAX?" has become "Does it support Acid3?"

Finally, the world of web browsers is beginning to come around and support WC3 standards.  I applaud all companies, from lowly Opera (to which I'm partial) all the way to Microsoft (which I loathe and use)

But now the online world is becoming even more complicated.  We now have Software As A Service, or SaaS.  This cringe worthy acronym is even worse in practice.  It's like rent to own furniture without the ownership or the furniture.

I shall, tomorrow, go further into why SaaS is not only the most expensive software that a company can employ, but also why it may be the least cost effective.
 

Here it goes again!

It's been nearly two years since I've updated this site...two very long years indeed.  It's about time I make a comeback.  After two years of constant studying of the economics of software, and economics in general, leads me to believe that the time is now for a fundit (Mo Rocca's play on words for a fun pundit).

I've taken my notes, the stories are here.  Check back shortly, I'll attempt a redesign of the site, and promise that many articles are one their way!

Friday, August 25, 2006

 
Search Engine Competition

Because of Google's popularity, Yahoo and MSN are playing catch-up on a very uneven and unsteady market not least because the two haven't figured out the magic of Google yet. These two websites operate on the philosophy that to be top, you need to be the best at everything and, in MSN's case, be in every possible online market. Google proved this wrong. Simplicity, ease of use, and minimal design has raised the company to the web-dominating power house it is today.

Yahoo almost had the minimal design going for it, but recently updated its site to look more modern. Its email remains one of the most used email sites in operation, but Yahoo Mail hasn't made the switch to an Ajax environment, which made Gmail so popular at first. Yahoo's news service remains widely used as well, and based on my own findings, outpaces Google News. What's strange is, Yahoo and Google seem to have a mutual peace between them, neither company seriously attempts to steal users from the other. And based on my own personal experience, Yahoo Publisher beats Google's Adwords.

Microsoft, on the other hand has gone out of it's way to be in every possible market online, but arrives to late to have much impact. MSN's social networking can never touch the popularity of Myspace or the more intelligent Blogger. You know, maybe all of MSN's ventures online do make some sense. They may be second rate at best compared to it's competitors, but with Vista and IE7 coming out at either the end of this year/beginning of next, Microsoft may finally be able to bring MSN services to the forefront by making them the default to Windows customers. It worked so well for them with IE, why not try it again, right?


 

A Brief Explanation of AJAX

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, or AJAX, is a "web development technique for creating interactive web applications" (thank you Wikipedia). In the past few days I gotten a bit more familiar with AJAX. In the briefest terms possible, AJAX acts as though the program is run on your computer, and not on an external server. This is made possible because a page is not reloaded, but instead updated. As I type this in Writely, every minute or so, off to the side it alerts me that it's saving the document. It works almost as well as an office program you may have installed on your computer, but instead it's a program you access through your browser. And I'm sure you may have noticed that your browser is a bit more lightweight than an office program, so there's one benefit right off the bat.

To illustrate this updating, I give you the following pictures:



and



Thank you Jesse James Garrett for these images!


 
Browser Wars

It's a topic that just won't go away. What's the best browser out there? No one can answer that but yourself, you just need to be open. I've given in depth reviews on the major browsers, but unlike many reviews you might read, I not only reported the date, but how usable and stable each product is. Seems to be that the browsers with the least usability have fallen by the wayside (Netscape and AOL browser, notably).Others remain somewhat obscure, such as Avant and Maxthon. These two are both wonderful at what they do, but their market seems limited to those who've used the programs since their heyday. And now we have the Big Two (er, three), Internet Explorer and Firefox, and the competition between them is fierce. I'd be remiss to mention Opera, it fits in the obscure category as well as entering a phase where it can be considered a major player.

Marketing, pure and simple, is the driving force behind the three major players and their success.

Internet Explorer has the obvious advantage. Not only has it been around for years, but it comes pre-installed on almost all personal computers. IE is a seasoned veteran, having won the first Browser War against Netscape in the late 90s. Microsoft doesn't need to rely on any major marketing to keep IE on top simply because it relies on the complacency of the average home users. Not only do people new to the online world accept that IE is the Internet, but people who are resistant to change also continue to use the program. For example, my girlfriend uses it 95% of the time (the other 5% she uses Opera, not by choice but because it's already open). She doesn't mind that IE crashes every half an hour as long as it gets her online. She also uses the search bar on her home page instead of the address bar to access websites, if that indicates anything.

In short, IE is a beast that will never go away, it's dominance tied to the success of Windows and the ill-informed average PC users. There a several ways to improve upon IE, user outcry is first and foremost. Within the last few years users have been switching from IE and Microsoft, ever so late to realize, is only now making steps to improve the program.

Firefox has an amazing marketing strategy, one that could not have even worked five or six years ago. Through the utilization of minimalism (of design, not necessarily code), FF has became a huge force in the browsing market. Knowing that the only way to have a successful browser is to offer a free browser, the FF team went even further. By making their program Open Source, not only would FF be free, but the programmers would be also. Thousands have freely given their time to the project, improving upon it. And some of the biggest names in the industry, such as IBM and Google, have donated large sums of money to the Firefox Foundation, and at times even brought their programmers onto the Firefox team. By word of mouth alone Firefox was huge even before 1.0 was introduced, and the constant release of new builds heightens the excitement of many FF users, whether they contribute or not. Problem is, unless Microsoft packages FF alongside IE in Windows, FF is unlikely to threaten IE's dominance.

Finally there's Opera, maintained by a small Norweigan company. The browser is only now becoming a major player alongside IE and FF. This is mostly due to the fact that up until a year ago Opera wasn't free. There was a free version, but it contained advertisements, which no one wants to be subjected to. Supported by these ads and paying customers, Opera had to remain very innovative if the company was to survive under limited resources. Small, fast, and efficient wasn't going to be enough, though. new features were introduced (M2, the built in mail client, an RSS feed reader, among others). Unfortunately, Opera's market share couldn't get out of 1%. Then, risking it all, Opera went free, relying on revenue generated by ads already seen on websites. The response was mixed, some embracing the browser not that it was free, others having already converted to FF and not wanting to make another switch. Now, with Opera 9 out, even more users are converting. It may never become the top browser for reasons stated above, but along with Firefox has the potential of moving IE closer to irrelevancy. It's growth in the last year and a half alone has been phenomenal.

Three different marketing techniques brought these three browsers to the forefront. IE's dominance through force, Firefox's viral campaign, and Opera's risks to become more visible have all been successful to varying degrees (Opera may not have the resources to launch a full on campaign as of yet). Obviously, out of the three, if you haven't tried Opera or Firefox, isn't it about time?

Technorati Tags:

Opera , Firefox , Internet Explorer , Google , Microsoft



Thursday, August 24, 2006

 
My laptop's ac adapter is down for the count and here I am writing everything on paper.  I've got nine posts written but not online.  I'll have to type it all tonight and tomorrow.  So here I am at this coffee shop and the most annoying thing occured.  This guy is talking on his cell non-stop, and loudly.  Talking about how he goes here once a week because the office is too noisy.  The room was thick with irony.  I manage to deal with this guy for about an hour until he sat just inches away so as to boot his laptop and send some emails.  Still on the phone, he begins mashing at his keyboard, talking loudly and being a general ass.

Then the old guys come in and start talking up a storm about how good it was in the 1800s.  I had to stop writing because I thought I was going to lose it.  I start reading when my phone rings.  I then get up and walked outside so as to not disturb anyone.  Now, yes, it isn't a library by any means so making a little bit of noise isn't such a big deal, but when someone is near you trying to work quietly, what's the harm in leaving them well enough alone?

 

Best of

Going to have a best of week next week. If you'd like to nominate your favorite posts of mine, go ahead and leave a request in the comments section. I've got pages and pages of posts hand written. Those should be up either tonight or tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

 

The Google Operating System

I guess it began with Google Desktop a few years ago. Since then there's the web accelerator, Gmail, Google Spreadsheets and Writely. There was some speculation whether Google would begin developing an Operating System to more directly compete with Microsoft. It has happened, it took only a few years, and has been apparently successful. And oddly enough, it probably has little to no impact on sales of Windows.


The Google operating system (though perhaps the Google Desktop Environment may be more appropriate) has almost symbiotically attached itself to Windows. So long as your computer has Windows (and soon Linux, it appears)you can access the GDE. Instead of using Outlook and Hotmail, you have Gmail, which you can easily access through outlook if you so choose. The benefit to Gmail is that so long as you have your web browser open, you have a feature rich mail client at your fingertips. All the power, but less resources wasted. Google knows that in this day and age a user's browser is open 24/7 and is able to serve web-based applications that are secure and relatively bug-free. For free. More users visiting Google web sites means more revenue generated from adsense.

Someone asked on Slashdot a few days ago what Google could possibly gain from giving away free services. Google's sole business strategy is to serve ads to as many people for as little cost to itself. Gmail and Blogger must have proved that the cost to maintain and build these services was worth it, or else Google wouldn't have designed Spreadsheets or aquired Writely. Also, interestingly, are programs that the company provides that exist merely to enhance the user's online experience. Neither Picasa or Google Web Accelerator serve ads, but instead give Google more visibility.

Their version of an operating system is simple, even if it's use is aided by the fact that it's "not Microsoft".

 
Looks like I'm back on the scene after another hiatus. How the hell am I supposed to build up readership and ad revenue when I disappear every now and then for months at a time? Writing is relaxing, I need to do it more often. I'm going back to the tried and true method of writing ideas in a notebook, fleshing them out, and then posting them. Always seemed like a good idea, and in application works wonders. Granted, instead of getting a post every few hours (when I'm regularly posting), I'm liable to post 5 pre-written within twenty minutes.

As long as I'm contributing again, there shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Monday, August 21, 2006

 

Writely In Open Beta

That wonderful web-based word processor Writely has undergone some changes since i wrote about it last. Earlier this year it was acquired by the online behemoth Google. While I still hold some trepidation over the acquisition, for the founders it was likely a wise decision. Some users may be apprehensive putting their documents on Google's servers, but the few who refuse to use the program now are nothing compare to the number of users Writely will attract due to its high profile owner Google.

The only real criticism I've seen was its lack of support of Opera. Sure, I may be a bit of an Opera fan boy, but these opinions came from non-Operacentric sites as Slashdot and Betanews. I only hope that past the acquisition, the Writely team and the Opera team continue to discuss further and better implementation.


 

As I've Stated before, I'm not from New Orleans, or in any of the Gulf Coast cities directly affected by hurricane Katrina. I live in Baton Rouge, an hour's drive from New Orleans.

Pre Katrina, Baton Rouge was a "city" of about 300,000 residents. In regards to infastructrue, the city is more of a Smalltown, USA type. Traffic was always bad, the roads never seemed to catch up with the population, and the drivers always thought they were in a NASCAR race rather than trying to adhere to the rules of the road. After Katrina, with the influx of refuees, problems in the Baton Rouge infastructure were exacerbated. I personally refused to drive at any point between 7 am and 7 pm until late November (nedless to say, that was probably the best semester I ever had).

It seemed that with these problems becoming worse, and a population ranging from 750,000 to 1 million, some things would likely be fixed. The Mayor-President allocated funds for the timing of traffic lights, temporary housing would be provided to the refugees, and many other solutions to local problems were proposed.

Fixing a traffic problem in Baton Rouge is always solved, in the eyes of those who make such decisions, by putting another light on another intersection. One of the busiest roads in town is Sherwood Forest/Siegen Lane. On a six mile stretch of this thoroughfare there are 12 traffic lights, none of them reliably timed for the flow of traffic. It's a mess every day, even on Sundays.

The job market in town is also awful. As a friend of mine put it, everone is hiring, but no one is getting hours. Our local economy has a lot of potential to grow in the next few years, but only if the city and its residents choose it to. So far, few new businesses have opened their doors with the exception of a new Lowes, a Best Buy, and a new movie theater. That'll be good for a few hundred jobs, not nearly as many as needed. Baton Rouge must open its doors to new buinesses, considering that many refugees are here to stay, the city now has an obligation to look after the welfare of these new citizens. Not through handouts but by convincing businesses that oportunity lies in this small town by the Mississippi River.


Tuesday, July 18, 2006

 

Still kind of sick

And is it hot in here or what. It's 83 degrees inside because the air conditioner isn't working properley and the landlord is a little slow to do maintenance work, which of course isn't helping my cold much. Oh well. I'm off to work in a little bit, and have an interview with a company called Vector tomorrow at 12, hopefully I'll feel well enough to make a good impression.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

 

The Carnival of Computing

After hosting the Carnival of the Capitalists (always a pleasure, and always something I look forward to), it's high time I re-re-started the Carnival of Computing. I lost contact of many of those who hoped to host the Carnival of Computing, but if any of you wish to help me, I have more than 200 articles that need to be brought to a wider public.

Check back at Anyletter later this week for this semi-milestone.
 

Carnival of the Capitalists

It must be Monday again, and that means a new installment of the Carnival of the Capitalists. I'm sorry if this reads a lot like a cut and paste job, but I've been down with a touch of Bronchitis since Friday. What isn't important is how well I summarized these posts but that they exist for your reading pleasure and edification. Go on and take a look. Since I'm posting this Sunday afternoon, I'll check throughout the evening for any stragglers and add them tonight. Have a great week.

Jon Anderson at An Ordinary Guy’s Path to Success… Again. presents A Slice of Time and the One Million Visitor Goal merge…

Starling David Hunter presents Extraordinary Extradition II: Where's the Beef? posted at The Business of America is Business.

Jane Dough at Boston Gal's Open Wallet presents Wealth Score

Chris Welch presents A Buck, A Yen, A Mark or A Pound posted at InvestorGeeks.

The Sports Biz Blog reports the members of the Big XII conference are exploring the idea of cooperation in research commercialization through a venture capital conference for conference members held in connection with the conference's football championship game. This is a new area for an athletic conference and is an area of great promise for universities across the country. Read it here.

Econbrowser asks Can the economy shrug off $80 oil?.

Mike Pechar, the Interested-Participant gives us a story that merits emphasis is the opening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline which connects the oil fields of the Caspian Sea to a terminal on the Mediterranean. Most noteworthy is that the 1,100-mile pipeline strategically bypasses Russia and the Middle Eastern nations of Iran, Iraq and Syria.

David Lorenzo presents Career Intensity Blog - David V. Lorenzo posted at The Career Intensity Blog.

Wayne Hurlbert gives some good advice on how to blog through a disaster. Found here

Andrew Trinh at Trizoko Biz Journal presents 3 Sweet Tips to Boost Team Productivity

Nick Tritt at Power Selling on eBay presents Keep Listings Simple

Jack Yoest presents The Modern Working Woman in Business, at Home posted at Jack Yoest.

Big Picture Guy at Big Picture, Small Office presents Hire Education

Boring Made Dull presents The Big Dig posted at The Boring Made Dull.

Jim presents Why Should A Business Have A Website? posted at Bizinformer.

Leon Gettler at Sox First presents Bob Geldof on poverty, corporate social responsibility and world trade

Adam at Sophistpundit presents The Citizen Economist

Tam Hanna presents On cheap staff posted at TamsPalm-the Palm OS Blog.

Leslie Carbone at LeslieCarbone presents One Red Paper Clip and the Power of the Market

Nina Smith at Queercents presents Buying Abroad

Jim Logan presents Sales Letters Sent To The Small Business CEO posted at Direct Response Works.

Paul at Paul's Tips presents How to work out if you're better off renting or buying a place to live

Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade presents When The Appraisal Is Below The Purchase Price for Real Estate

Pawel Brodzinski at Software Project Management presents How to Make Presentation Memorable

Jeannie Bauer at Bouncing Back presents Surviving Office Politics (Part 1)

Bob Vineyard, CLU presents Today's Beef posted at InsureBlog.

Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity presents First Monkeys, Now Computers Pick Stocks Better

Matt Inglot presents Thoughts on Entrepreneurship, Business, and Success » The Secrets of Creating and Growing an Online Business posted at Matt Inglot.

Christine Kane presents Have an Adventure Day posted at Christine Kane.

Barry Welford at The Other Bloke's Blog presents Outsourcing - Going With The Flow

David Maister presents Benchmarks posted at David Maister's Passion, People and Principles

Edge at The Edge's Webdev Blog presents How to make pocket money selling links on your blog or website

Wenchypoo at Frugal Wisdom from Wenchypoo's Warehouse presents This Thing Called "Inflation"

FMF at Free Money Finance presents Earn 20%, Guaranteed

Steve at The Sharpener presents British Business under American Rules

David A. Porter presents How much do i have to tell a mortgage broker about my stated income? posted at Pacesetter Mortgage Blog.

Steve Faber presents H-1B Visas - Good For America? posted at Debt Free

Peter Kua presents After Innovation: Sustaining It posted at RadicalHop.com: Grow with Passion.

Pamela Slim presents Can you get VC money and mentors if you don't play hockey with Guy Kawasaki? posted at Escape from Cubicle Nation.

Peter Kua presents Stepford kids: Targeted advertisement gone extreme posted at RadicalHop.com: Grow with Passion.

A Samuel at Property Blog presents The Home equity debate

David Foster, author of Photon Courier ctiicizes the Dean of the Columbia Business School's response to critiques of B-school education.

Pundits frequently tell us that it costs more to acquire a customer than to retain a customer. It is more important to accurately allocate acquisition and retention spend, in order to achieve maximum profitability. Read why here from Mine That Data.

In this exclusive interview brought to us by Leon Gettler, Bob Geldof talks about the Gates-Buffett mega-foundation, the lack of accountability of the G8 and Africa. He also warns that the world faces catastrophe if the Doha round of world trade negotiations collapses. Click this link to read more.

Carmine Coyote explores the prevalent approach to dealing with competitive pressures: one that is based more on brute force than clever or technologically-advanced ideas. By cutting staffing and creating long-hours cultures, many organizations are seeking to increase productivity in the simplest way possible.

Adrian Savage asks if loyalty to the boss and the company is always admirable, since too much loyalty can stifle dissent and leave no one willing to rock the boat by pointing out problems or faults—or even to use their creativity to bring forward new ideas.

"Are boys getting shafted in school?" Yvonne DiVita asks. Which gender is now getting the better education? Let's see...

Execupundit.com outlines how seeking to avoid certain outcomes can lead to those very outcomes.

Steve Conover used to think paying down the debt would be a good idea. After some research, he changed his mind. This article explains what happened when he tried it, and the probable reasons the results were the opposite of what conventional wisdom has led us to believe.

Sometimes, we're our own worst enemy says Bob Vineyard of Insureblog. Especially when it comes to paying for health care. Are we really making intelligent, cost-effective choices?

Nick Aster looks at a more free market approach to dealing with excessive lawns in desert areas.

Joshua Sharf writes that Morgan Stanley is proposing to remove Venezuela from its Emerging Market Index because the country's performance has been so dismal, and because the investment controls has made most of the country's stock's illiquid. Read about it here.

After hosting the Carnival of the Capitalists (always a pleasure, and always something I look forward to), it's high time I re-re-started the Carnival of Computing. I lost contact of many of those who hoped to host the Carnival of Computing, but if any of you wish to help me, I have more than 200 articles that need to be brought to a wider public.

Check back at Anyletter later this week for this semi-milestone. And if you wish to help, contact me at andrewhughes.1=a=gmail.com.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

 

My computer geek score is greater than 93% of all people in the world! How do you compare? Click here to find out!

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

 

Am I Still Here?

As always, a resounding "yes". And what excuse do I always fall back on? Busy! How can anyone ever forget that? In fact I should probably change the blog's title to "If there hasn't been a post in a month or so, I'm actually in the middle of being busy". Or something like that.

Actually I stopped posting because of a ghost. Sure, she'd been around here before (as I check my logs), but she's definitely back for the moment. I figure I'll lay low for a couple of weeks and she'll get bored, just like she did with me. And then happy posting fun time for all.

But the significance of this post is...happy 01:02:03 04/05/06 everyone!

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

 

Carnival of Computing 1.0.8

So comes a time when there must be a Carnival of Computing. Sure, it's been a while since my last, but it's kind of hard to do it every week. If you are interested in hosting just shoot me an email or leave a comment. It's been a busy few weeks in the tech world and hopefully the following posts will tide you over until version 1.0.9.

Alex Bendig of Not Just Code helps us solve the Eight Queens puzzle using python.

Bruce Eisner's Vision Thing has an interesting look at how bit torrent is affecting the internet as a whole, using Tivo as an example.

Caleb Tennis of CodeSnipers takes a look at the viability of outsourcing programming work.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports that tomorrow Google will officially begin taking over the world, er, I mean integrating Google talk within Gmail.

I'd like to allow Keith Casey some time to gloat, his company Casey Software turned one. Sounds like business has been on the up and up. Congratulations.

Dave Winer offers a few suggestions for improving RSS .

Dion of Techno.Blog reminds us that integration is not always optimal .

Dion also writes for Ajaxian (which has undergone an overhaul since I've last been there) and gives us a look at Opera 9's Technical Preview. It's a wonderful thing.

JRoss of RossCode brings us his 35th weekly review.

Ed Brill writes about how it's ok to be passionate about Lotus Notes. Though since he's been working with them for 14 years, I think he may be biased, but that's fine.

Bob Wyman of As I May Think writes about privacy concerning the US's attempt at looking at Google's mass of stored personal information.

Shoe , the Linux Librarian, tells of more adventures concerning the Librarian and the Kernel .

Martin Ferretti of TipMonkies gives us a look into 30 boxes, a calendar application that has done to calendars what Gmail has done to email.

And since I failed to link to the CotC website yesterday, here's a link! The CotC will also be hosting this week's Carnival of the Vanities.

 

Almost there

Yesterday's Carnival of Computing today! Actually just need to vet a few more links and make sure everything works and then straight from my cardboard laptop to your golden computers!

Monday, February 06, 2006

 

Carnival of the Capitalists

Welcome one and all to the Carnival of the Capitalists. It may be up a little late, but never you fear, the Carnival is here. Also, visit later today for the next edition of the Carnival of Computing (version 1.0.8). Without further ado, let's proceed with the show.

The Boring made dull continues to be "No Worse Than a Poke in the Eye" with this post concerning a stock pitched via fax. Actually, this is way funnier than a poke in the eye.

Martin Lindeskog gives his thoughts and comments on the Chipotle IPO and the fast food market.

JLP of AllThingsFinancial, wonders aloud whether it's wise to begin investing with only $100 to start.

In this special guest post by Joy Levin, you get practical advice on how to research your market, including valuable links to free or top notch research resources. Found over at Small Business Trends

The Five Cent Nickel reports on the BB&T's stand on eminent domain.

Gaurav Agarwal comments on Indian enterprenuerial setup and a proposal to make improvements to the sector.

Daniel Harrison exposses a very biased report on IPOs.

Matt Johnston at Going to the Mat presents SOTU and Health Care

Sarah at frugal underground presents Blingo, the search engine that pays you back?

FMF at Free Money Finance presents Make Sure Your Financial Advisor is Not a Loser. Don't put your money in the hands of someone who knows nothing about money!

Using simple examples, Marketplace Monitor examines the effects of the minimum wage.

David Porter at Pacesetter Mortgage Blog presents Bloggers: The World is Watching! 10% of his Blog Traffic is from outside the US. This article shares what a responsiblity this is and wonders about other bloggers traffic.

David Daniels writes why having your company's busines model be more like the Super Bowl than the World Cup of Soccer makes a difference.

Steve Nipper has been blogging for two years now and wanted to list the five biggest lessons he tries to teach to new bloggers (lessons he learned the hard way).


Henry Stern, LUTCF at InsureBlog presents Keeping PACE with ERISA. Until now, self-funded (ERISA) health plans have only been available to "the big boys." Now, even small employers can use them to help cut costs. An *exclusive* interview with the folks behind this unique new plan.

Jonathan at MyMoneyBlog presents 25 Reasons Why NOT To Save For Retirement. There are so many people telling us why we should save for retirement. But what about people that just want a good excuse NOT to? This resource is for them. (Humor)

Political Calculations runs the numbers to see if "Big Oil"'s record profits are really coming from gouging consumers at the pump.

Jeff Cornwall writes, "Accurate revenue forecasting is one of the single most important steps an entrepreneur takes in planning for a new venture. And yet, we find that most entrepreneurs do not spend enough time determining how much revenue will come in their front doors. Although underestimating expenses is a common mistake in business planning, missing the mark on revenues can be catastrophic." Check out the rest here.

Ilkka Kokkarinen explains why the feminist arguments for compensating housewives for housework are silly.

Nina Smith reminds us that there are soldiers who are in desparate need of financial advice.

Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade presents Should I Buy A Home? Part 3: Consequences.

Adam at Sophistpundit presents The Long Tail of Moviemaking. A new business model for the movie industry.


Blog Business World supports sponsorship of blog events, but there's a catch.

Barry Welford at The Other Bloke's Blog presents Hot Topics. Economics seems no longer to be the dismal science since some say our financial behaviour may be governed by our brain's pleasure centres, just like sex.

Adrian Savage writes that mediocrity and frustration are the true price of conforming. Only those with the courage openly to live their dreams can ever find lasting success.

Luxury retailers love Japan and Japan loves luxury retailers. Read about Coach, the American luxury handbag and accessory retailer that is generating a lot of buzz and a lot of sales versus its European rivals in the Land of the Rising Sun. Courtesy of the Japan Stock Blog.

Barry Ritholtz gives us a look on the "Uncertainty" discount.

Mark at SportsBiz writes that NASCAR attempts to deepen ties to its female market through romance novels - good marketing or crazy stunt?

Starling David Hunter at The Business of America Is Business presents Will the Boycott of Danish Goods Work? With all the apologies and recriminations and warnings flying back and forth, scant attention has been devoted to the question of whether boycotts even work and if so, how well.

Jack Yoest at Jack Yoest presents Managing Expectations; Managing Exits. A senior manager committed a firing offense. He was counseled. Talked to. But then nothing happened. The employee thought the event was placed behind us all. He was wrong....

Tom Hanna at Financial Options presents TThe Week Ahead: Your Financial Roadmap for February 6-10, 2006. Each of the upcoming financial items with the exception of Treasury auctions and announcements will be posted here in the Economic Indicators category and linked directly from this post as it becomes available

Rob at Businesspundit looks at the flawed research used in the book "Good to Great."

Econbrowser puts a happy face (literally) on the latest employment data.

Joe Kristan writes how a tax law provision that helps owners of condemned properties may complicate efforts to limit the Kelo decision.

Does ten percent of your overhead go to problems with one percent of your customers? Could you redesign your business to exclude a whole class of service problems? Bob Pritchett has the answers.

On one hand they’re just tricks, boarder-line ethical techniques to get suspects to respond. On the other hand they’re proven tricks, border-line ethical techniques to get suspects to respond. Jim Logan has more here.

Bizinformer writes that visions seem to be process driven, the outcome of a structured brainstorming session where you nit pick the definition and meaning of words until everyone’s so confused nobody knows what the whole thing is about anymore.

Big Picture Guy at Big Picture, Small Office presents Hard to Swallow. Beware the fury of a patient man, wrote John Dryden. The owner of this upstate distributor, seething because we wouldn’t hire his son, planned the set-up well. But for once, our otherwise defensive CEO was up to the challenge.

Mike Landfair at Mover Mike presents Gibson's Paradox. Don Luskin points out the mistake that prompted Greenspan to abandon his "virtual gold standard".

The Daily Dose of Optimism has had a hard time getting concerned about internet censorship in China by companies like Yahoo, Google and Microsoft. In this post, he walks through his reasons why.

The Library Girl at The Library Girl presents Becoming 'Bait'. The Library Girl continues her astonishing odyssey through a four-book-a-week challenge by wading into ‘guru’-written self-help books. Bait and Switch (depressing), Who Moved My Cheese? (more accurately, who stole my wallet?), and Covey’s The Eighth Habit (a habit no longer) are all reviewed. This a capitalist readers’ must-read.

TT at Retire at 30 presents Million Dollar Idea - Pixels for Sale. Analysis of how one kid in england turned a hairbrained idea into $1,000,000 for college.

Even in 2006, people are still trying to argue that socialism is good for the environment. Here's plenty of strong evidence why they're dead wrong. Check out this post from Brian Gongol.

Anika Therapeutics has appeared on Joel Greenblatt's Magic Formula list recently. George of Fat Pitch Financials examines whether this company has a wide moat.

Will Kirby at Kirby on Finance presents Does giving to charity hurt your bottom line?. This post looks at some of the "negative" aspects of charitable giving and ponders why so many financial planners promote giving.

Junelle Caravana at Business Ethics presents Internet Censorship by US Companies in China. The article points out that Google is not the first global Internet company to cave in to pressure from the Chinese government.

Also I'd like to send you towards Robert May, who asked that I include the editors picks from Jotzel (here and here).

It's been a pleasure as always, and I would have had this up much earlier had I not had to do so much housework. But that's life I guess. Hope you all have a great week and visit Frugal Underground for next weeks (duhm duhm duhm!) Carnival of the Capitalists.
 
I'm about to take a quick lunch break, finish working on the Carnival of the Capitalists, and the public's hunger for the CotC will be sate.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

 

browser fun

Seamonkey 1.0 is out, and I'm playing around with the Opera 9 preview as well as IE7b1. Reviews will be coming.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

 
Time must fly. Monday crept up on me and I don't have enough time before work to get the Carnival ready (started, however, is another matter). Look for it tomorrow or thursday for sure. Also, I'm taking up the Carnival of the Capitalists next week so I'm looking to outsource (heh) the Carnival of Computing for next monday. Interested parties can contact me at andrewhughes.1@gmail.

Monday, January 16, 2006

 

Carnival of Computing 1.0.7

It's that time of week again. If I hadn't worked 70 hours last week I would have had this up much earlier. School starts back up for me tomorrow, and oddly enough that means I'll be able to stay on top of the Carnival instead of never getting around to it. In fact, I ought to be able to find a replacement site to take care of the Carnival for when I know I won't be around. But enough about the inner workings of the Carnival, why don't we go ahead and get right down to business this week. I know you probably don't come here to read my comments, you come because I'm a relatively useful (if not conistent) aggregator of tech blogs. Let's check out this week's (month's, really) best of the best:

Ilkka Kokkarinen of Sixteen Volts wonders why element insertion to dynamic set data structures is always easier than element removal. Honestly, as a business major this is geek to me, but after reading this post I was surprised at how I can still understand some concepts. Sixteen Volts is definitely worth the visit. Thanks to Ilkka for using the Blog Carnival Submission page.

Josh Cohen of Multiple Mentality likens all the updates needed for Microsoft applications to sticking with a cheating spouse. This post is worth it, especially for Josh's update at the end.

Josh also brings us this realization: given how easy it is to register a domain name and start a blog, it's no surprise how quickly someone will use a
news event to get hits on their site.

Adam the Sophistpundit has a few ideas on how blogging can be utilized in schools and businesses.

Elisa Camahort , host of previous Carnival of Computings, calls us to listen to Web 2.0 developers. Figuring I'm writing this in Writely, I have to agree with her.

Nick at ICT Blogger reminds us just how far wireless internet has come in the last year, and gives us a look ahead to WiMax









Sunday, January 08, 2006

 

Second Check

Got my second check from Adbrite the other day, so I'm pleased as punch. 4 dollars and change, almost 4 times my first check. That'd be awesome if it wasn't so depressing. At least, unlike other ad programs, Adbrite pays you every month you make money (assuming it's more than a dollar) instead of 100.


 

Untitled

I'm back in Louisiana now. Been here a week, but I've been working and otherwise keeping myself busy. No matter, there will be a Carnival of Computing tomorrow for all you wondering, I've got plenty enough submissions to go through so it shouldn't take me too long to work on it. But if it's not up by 11 am cst, don't count on it until very late tomorrow. I'm taking advantage of the last week before school starts and working my ass off. I could use the money, and have some extra cash in reserve for whatever.

Alright, now it's time to get to work.

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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

 

Back Home

I left on Monday for NJ and got her yesterday afternoon at around 5. I'm staying with my paternal grandmother for a few days, then my maternal for another few days. After that, I should have 2-3 days to do whatever (so if there're any friends around, just email me).

Damned MTA is down, my 70 year old uncle had to walk 35 blocks to get to work from Penn Station. I just love unions at christmas time, don't you?

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

 

Carnival is Up

Here. Check it out, and much thanks to Elisa Camahort for making it possible during my finals week. I hope to publish it next week and then it's going to New Jersey with me for a much needed vacation. How I'm going to transport it escapes me at the moment, but there has to be a way. Right?

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

 

Carnival

Well, you've all been asking (ok, so it's more like 5 people asked) so you're going to get it. Monday check out browser blog for the next installment of the Carnival of Computing.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

 

I am the Geopolitician!

I can't be the only one to notice these changes. What a weird world we live in, right? Last year I was all for democracy in Ukraine (The Land, which is why I refuse to call it "The" Ukraine), just ask a very "special" ex of mine. Granted, Eastern European politics strikes close to home with me, what with my Grandparents having to dodge a minefield to get from Hungary to Austria (with my Aunt Maria, born Marika, and my Grandmother pregnant with my mother). Touchy subject, and if I feel comfortable enough around you, it's a great story, full of suspense and intrigue. And I'm comfortable around everyone, unless you're gorgeous, then I'm just a tad bit shy. Anyways!

At times, I've been known to talk about American politics. Well, North American, at least (ask me about South America and how USA should handle the despots/dictators/democracies down there, why don't you).

Well hell, I'm off on so many tangents when all I really want to say is...Canada is fucked. Earlier today the equivalent to the House of Reps voted overwhelmingly against the Prime Minister and his party (elections begin in January to replace the current government). Now, I don't claim to have all the details (Though like Yuschenko, I'm intrigued, meaning I'll have all the information and then some within 24 hours, as well as opinions for and against).

National distrust in USA is one thing, we're large enough, population-wise, to accept most ways of life. It's our neighbooring countries which I sometimes worry about. Early in the 20th century there was the Catholic purging of Mexico, and now, early in the 21st century there is a liberal purging of Canada. Whichever side of the fence you're on, both are wrong. Everyone should be an acceptable human being, at the very least.

My friend, after I told him the news, said that Ca. was getting its act together, being more in line with it's brothers (USA and Australia) and it's father (GB). Now, I'm not a terribly aggressive person, but if one nation decides to act contrary to another, then so let it.

Fucking Americentrics.

It isn't all Western Hemisphere/48th parellel, you know. There are other people outside the USA, and when Canada (or as I sometimes call it, America's hat) collapses, it ought to mean as much to us as a collapse in Ukranian government meant to Russia.

Canada down, 192 nations to go (and I think France with all the rioting, though it may have died down, is next).

Republics/ Democratic Republics have been proven not to work. Only a true democracy, one without media intervention, can avoid the problems of a GWB or a politcal coup in Canada.

Right wing nutjob my ass.

It's time to relable myself. The geopolitician.

Give me more non americentric news and I will blow anyone out of the water. Beware, though, I may find the information out myself. Be careful of the man with interest.

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