This is why Apple will never win with the iPhone
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/10/30/opera-browser-now-allowed-in-iphone-app-store/
Restrictive practises like this damage not only the company but the consumer as well.
Cheers,
Dean
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Thecus N7700
Mmmm Yummy, look what the lovely DHL delivery guy just dropped off.
The Thecus N7700
is a brand new 7 drive Raid NAS server.
Offers iSCSI direct disk support on Raid 0,1,5,6,10 (even multiple raid groups).
Allows network seperate configurable LAN and WAN ports. The eSata drive can be used for offloading onto another disk/tape solution. In addition there is a PCI slot that I've been told is there to create 'multiple N7700 clusters' though I haven't seen it done and not sure what the limitations are but I've been told you can stack 7 of them in a cluster!!!!
Cheers,
Dean
P.S. If you dont 'need' a 7 disk NAS you should check out the Thecus N5200BR
which is their 5 disk version. It has functions that leave the other vendors like Netgear and Drobo in the dust.
The Thecus N7700 is a brand new 7 drive Raid NAS server.
Offers iSCSI direct disk support on Raid 0,1,5,6,10 (even multiple raid groups).Allows network seperate configurable LAN and WAN ports. The eSata drive can be used for offloading onto another disk/tape solution. In addition there is a PCI slot that I've been told is there to create 'multiple N7700 clusters' though I haven't seen it done and not sure what the limitations are but I've been told you can stack 7 of them in a cluster!!!!Unfortunately I'm still waiting for the 7 x Seagate 1.5 Tb drives ST31500341AS drives to arrive so at the moment it's just sitting there looking all hot and pretty.
Although I'm using it for my personal home use i'm sure it will be right at home in a SME without the high pricepoints for a Pillar or similar NAS solution.
If you are looking for a solid NAS and those puny 2 and 4 drive boxes are not enough for you :) then you should check out the N7700. Also they are coming out with an rackbased version in about 2 months if you want to wait for it.
This was one of the first 50 or so to land in the country this week so you might find it hard to get your own. Amazon
have got some reasonable deals as well.
Although I'm using it for my personal home use i'm sure it will be right at home in a SME without the high pricepoints for a Pillar or similar NAS solution.
If you are looking for a solid NAS and those puny 2 and 4 drive boxes are not enough for you :) then you should check out the N7700. Also they are coming out with an rackbased version in about 2 months if you want to wait for it.
This was one of the first 50 or so to land in the country this week so you might find it hard to get your own. Amazon
have got some reasonable deals as well.Cheers,
Dean
P.S. If you dont 'need' a 7 disk NAS you should check out the Thecus N5200BR
which is their 5 disk version. It has functions that leave the other vendors like Netgear and Drobo in the dust.
Monetizing the Long Tail
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081028-mtv-smacks-youtube-posts-almost-every-music-video-ever.html
If you have 'archive content' regardless of how crap you think it might be someone somewhere wants access to that content and this move by MTV is a great example of how you can use 'todays' marketing dollars to pay for access to your archive content for someone who wants to relive "Ah-Ha's 80's classic Take on Me" yet another time :)
What "archive content" do you have that could be monetized immediately, especially in these financially trying times.
Cheers,
Dean
If you have 'archive content' regardless of how crap you think it might be someone somewhere wants access to that content and this move by MTV is a great example of how you can use 'todays' marketing dollars to pay for access to your archive content for someone who wants to relive "Ah-Ha's 80's classic Take on Me" yet another time :)
What "archive content" do you have that could be monetized immediately, especially in these financially trying times.
Cheers,
Dean
Monday, October 27, 2008
HipLogic.com
I just came across this article
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/content/1967.html
Anyone using Hip Logic or had a look at the programming api’s?
www.hiplogic.com
Cheers,
Dean
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/content/1967.html
Anyone using Hip Logic or had a look at the programming api’s?
www.hiplogic.com
Cheers,
Dean
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Oil factoid
Was reading an interesting factoid in an investment magazine this week;
The average cost of extracting oil in the USA $63.71 a barrel
The average cost of extracting oil in Saudi Arabia $5.26 a barrel
Ouch.
Cheers,
Dean
The average cost of extracting oil in the USA $63.71 a barrel
The average cost of extracting oil in Saudi Arabia $5.26 a barrel
Ouch.
Cheers,
Dean
Saturday, October 18, 2008
HEART taxation act drives away green card workers
Basically what the HEART Taxation Act means for foreign citizens on greencards is that if we stay longer than 8 years that the USA government wants to tax our unrealised capital gains across our entire net worth, even money you might have earned 10-20 years BEFORE you even moved to the USA :(
http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=62884
I'm sure that the politicians who passed this knew what they were doing but anyone who employs foreign nationals to provide valuable services for their companies may not understand why people are going to be turning down good jobs to leave the USA before they reach the 8 year limit.
This is going to be a major major problem for USA companies and a brain drain on valuable skill sets.
If you are a foreign national holding a greencard what do you think about this?
If you an employer who has green card staff on your payroll what do you think about this and how are you planning to handle staff leaving your company to go back home (or more likely move to more favourable tax jurisdictions).
Cheers,
Dean
BTW can you believe the irony that fat slob Charlie "tax cheating" Rangel was the author of this bill that is going to drive expats away from the USA, lol bet you the NY Times never prints the irony of that one.
P.S. A couple of worthwhile links to check out;
http://benefitslink.com/articles/guests/washbull080630.html
http://robertschon.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/the-heroes-earning-assistance-and-relief-tax-heart-act
Explanation of $651,000 capital gains threshold - https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2012/12/01/high-cost-to-go-green-giving-up-a-green-card/#532ef010c08c
One of the best explanations of the entire S. 877A IRS Tax code situation from the view of a Canadian giving up USA citizenship (same position applies to most people having to pay Heart Taxation Act "USA Exit Tax") explains the calculations and implications over 9 different articles - http://www.citizenshipsolutions.ca/2015/04/01/renouncing-us-citizenship-how-the-s-877a-exit-tax-may-apply-to-your-canadian-assets-5-parts/
Difference between a “surrendered”, “relinquished”, and “renounced” U.S. citizenship https://1040abroad.com/faq/renouncing-u-s-citizenship/
A post for Aussies reading this;
https://atlaswealth.com/news/will-you-pay-a-us-exit-tax-because-of-your-green-card/?
Basically If you have a house or an apartment in Sydney and a little bit of Aussie super OR usa 401k....pretty easy to get caught up in the $2m limit....then you have to file/payup.....even though you spent 10-20 years working in Australia to create those assets......the USA IRS has wars to pay for so you are going to pay an exit tax on their ENTIRE value and not just the value that they went up while you lived here.
And keep in mind that if you get caught by "any" of the points pretty much anyone working a tech or finance expat job in NY/SF is going to fall foul of the income limts pretty easily.
(for more see - https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8854.pdf )
"Definition Of Covered Expatriate
If you expatriated on or after June 17, 2008, the new IRC 877A expatriation rules apply to you if any of the following statements apply.
•Your average annual net income tax for the 5 years ending before the date of expatriation or termination of residency is more than a specified amount that is adjusted for inflation ($151,000 for 2012, $155,000 for 2013, $157,000 for 2014, and $160,000 for 2015).
•Your net worth is $2 million or more on the date of your expatriation or termination of residency.
•You fail to certify on Form 8854 that you have complied with all U.S. federal tax obligations for the 5 years preceding the date of your expatriation or termination of residency"
http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=62884
I'm sure that the politicians who passed this knew what they were doing but anyone who employs foreign nationals to provide valuable services for their companies may not understand why people are going to be turning down good jobs to leave the USA before they reach the 8 year limit.
This is going to be a major major problem for USA companies and a brain drain on valuable skill sets.
If you are a foreign national holding a greencard what do you think about this?
If you an employer who has green card staff on your payroll what do you think about this and how are you planning to handle staff leaving your company to go back home (or more likely move to more favourable tax jurisdictions).
Cheers,
Dean
BTW can you believe the irony that fat slob Charlie "tax cheating" Rangel was the author of this bill that is going to drive expats away from the USA, lol bet you the NY Times never prints the irony of that one.
P.S. A couple of worthwhile links to check out;
http://benefitslink.com/articles/guests/washbull080630.html
http://robertschon.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/the-heroes-earning-assistance-and-relief-tax-heart-act
Explanation of $651,000 capital gains threshold - https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2012/12/01/high-cost-to-go-green-giving-up-a-green-card/#532ef010c08c
One of the best explanations of the entire S. 877A IRS Tax code situation from the view of a Canadian giving up USA citizenship (same position applies to most people having to pay Heart Taxation Act "USA Exit Tax") explains the calculations and implications over 9 different articles - http://www.citizenshipsolutions.ca/2015/04/01/renouncing-us-citizenship-how-the-s-877a-exit-tax-may-apply-to-your-canadian-assets-5-parts/
Difference between a “surrendered”, “relinquished”, and “renounced” U.S. citizenship https://1040abroad.com/faq/renouncing-u-s-citizenship/
A post for Aussies reading this;
https://atlaswealth.com/news/will-you-pay-a-us-exit-tax-because-of-your-green-card/?
Basically If you have a house or an apartment in Sydney and a little bit of Aussie super OR usa 401k....pretty easy to get caught up in the $2m limit....then you have to file/payup.....even though you spent 10-20 years working in Australia to create those assets......the USA IRS has wars to pay for so you are going to pay an exit tax on their ENTIRE value and not just the value that they went up while you lived here.
And keep in mind that if you get caught by "any" of the points pretty much anyone working a tech or finance expat job in NY/SF is going to fall foul of the income limts pretty easily.
(for more see - https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8854.pdf )
"Definition Of Covered Expatriate
If you expatriated on or after June 17, 2008, the new IRC 877A expatriation rules apply to you if any of the following statements apply.
•Your average annual net income tax for the 5 years ending before the date of expatriation or termination of residency is more than a specified amount that is adjusted for inflation ($151,000 for 2012, $155,000 for 2013, $157,000 for 2014, and $160,000 for 2015).
•Your net worth is $2 million or more on the date of your expatriation or termination of residency.
•You fail to certify on Form 8854 that you have complied with all U.S. federal tax obligations for the 5 years preceding the date of your expatriation or termination of residency"
Friday, October 17, 2008
Twitter Valuation
Just read this article about Twitter CEO changing places….
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10068368-36.html?part=rss
Which got me thinking about how much Twitter might be worth.
Accurate numbers seem hard to find but best estimates are
Number of Twitter Users (TwitDir) : 3,183,544
Daily Twitter messages (Twiturly) : 200,000 - 250,000
What I don’t understand is how they took $15m in investment with zero revenue model. Even if they made 1c per message that’s under 1m dollars in revenue a year, or 15 x earnings just on the last investment alone forget about their total valuation.
Can someone point out to me their way of valuing this company based on the number of interactions per day.
Cheers,
Dean
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10068368-36.html?part=rss
Which got me thinking about how much Twitter might be worth.
Accurate numbers seem hard to find but best estimates are
Number of Twitter Users (TwitDir) : 3,183,544
Daily Twitter messages (Twiturly) : 200,000 - 250,000
What I don’t understand is how they took $15m in investment with zero revenue model. Even if they made 1c per message that’s under 1m dollars in revenue a year, or 15 x earnings just on the last investment alone forget about their total valuation.
Can someone point out to me their way of valuing this company based on the number of interactions per day.
Cheers,
Dean
Australian 'Net Nanny' is scary
Very scary article in Ars Technica today.
Australians may not be able to opt out of the government's Internet filtering initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to come out about Australia's Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block "illegal" content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing stages, but network engineers are now saying that there's no way to opt out entirely from content filtering.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081016-net-filters-required-for-all-australians-no-opt-out.html
Read this comment from an Internode engineer (Internode is Australia's third biggest ISP (and was my ISP in Australia)).
Well, it turns out now that those promises were only partially true. Internode network engineer Mark Newton told Computerworld that users are able to opt out of the "additional material" blacklist—which targets content inappropriate for children—but not the main blacklist that filters what the Australian government determines is illegal content.
This is scary enough, that if this goes through I would no longer consider Australia my home.
Looks like I'll be immigrating to Belize or some other latin american country where the sun shines and the beaches are good BUT if you want to visit internet websites where naked midgets lick peanut butter from each others privates while learning how to make pipe bombs and use PGP then the government couldn't care less.
My issue is the law should determine what is illegal not politicians of the day. What happens tomorrow if you get some idiot like Andrew Cuomo voted into Australian Parliament tomorrow and he decides that Usenet news groups should no longer be available in Australia.
It will be interesting to see how this changes Australian's condemnation of the politcial situation in China..... it's hardly fair for them to complain any more.
Cheers,
Dean
Australians may not be able to opt out of the government's Internet filtering initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to come out about Australia's Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block "illegal" content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing stages, but network engineers are now saying that there's no way to opt out entirely from content filtering.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081016-net-filters-required-for-all-australians-no-opt-out.html
Read this comment from an Internode engineer (Internode is Australia's third biggest ISP (and was my ISP in Australia)).
Well, it turns out now that those promises were only partially true. Internode network engineer Mark Newton told Computerworld that users are able to opt out of the "additional material" blacklist—which targets content inappropriate for children—but not the main blacklist that filters what the Australian government determines is illegal content.
This is scary enough, that if this goes through I would no longer consider Australia my home.
Looks like I'll be immigrating to Belize or some other latin american country where the sun shines and the beaches are good BUT if you want to visit internet websites where naked midgets lick peanut butter from each others privates while learning how to make pipe bombs and use PGP then the government couldn't care less.
My issue is the law should determine what is illegal not politicians of the day. What happens tomorrow if you get some idiot like Andrew Cuomo voted into Australian Parliament tomorrow and he decides that Usenet news groups should no longer be available in Australia.
It will be interesting to see how this changes Australian's condemnation of the politcial situation in China..... it's hardly fair for them to complain any more.
Cheers,
Dean
Monday, October 13, 2008
CPA or CPM?
This was posted on a newsgroup and i thought it warranted posting my reply to the blog.
--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "koded_730"
wrote:>> I am asking this question because of websites that use PPC as the
> major source of income generation. If you have alot of ad impressions
> with low click throughs, who do you blame? your website design, the
> advertiser, visitors? What do you think you could do to improve the
> click through rates on the banners or ads elements if you had the
> chance?
I blame people who market 'for call to actions', I think a more focused push to banner ads that promote 'awareness marketing' without immediate call to actions makes more sense for banner ads.
It doesn't make sense for people to 'abandon' what they are doing on a website in order to go off onto another action most times this is why i think PPC doesn't make sense.
Even though you may receive less initially I think it makes far more sense to implement a CPI or CPM standard then the onus is on the advertiser to create the 'lure' to pull away your website visitors through creative ads and efficient call to actions.
Cheers,
Dean
--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "koded_730"
wrote:>> I am asking this question because of websites that use PPC as the
> major source of income generation. If you have alot of ad impressions
> with low click throughs, who do you blame? your website design, the
> advertiser, visitors? What do you think you could do to improve the
> click through rates on the banners or ads elements if you had the
> chance?
I blame people who market 'for call to actions', I think a more focused push to banner ads that promote 'awareness marketing' without immediate call to actions makes more sense for banner ads.
It doesn't make sense for people to 'abandon' what they are doing on a website in order to go off onto another action most times this is why i think PPC doesn't make sense.
Even though you may receive less initially I think it makes far more sense to implement a CPI or CPM standard then the onus is on the advertiser to create the 'lure' to pull away your website visitors through creative ads and efficient call to actions.
Cheers,
Dean
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Verizon shutting down the SMS industry in the USA
Verizon have decided to charge everyone sending one of their subscribers a 3c charge for every SMS they deliver.
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/messaging/1879.html
Basically Verizon have slammed shut the SMS industry in the USA.
Yet another example of dumbass dinosaur carrier mentality. Sooner they all die out and get turned into fixed flat rate ip pipes the better.
Cheers,
Dean
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/messaging/1879.html
Basically Verizon have slammed shut the SMS industry in the USA.
Yet another example of dumbass dinosaur carrier mentality. Sooner they all die out and get turned into fixed flat rate ip pipes the better.
Cheers,
Dean
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