David after the dentist

I'm rofl crying my eyes out - i randomly found this video on this page http://www.dipity.com/tatercakes/Internet_Memes/

lol i dont know the story but crackup



Cheers,
Dean

If You’re Afraid Of Being Ripped Off, You’re An Amateur

Came across this on NextNY list

http://www.inktank.com/2009/03/17/if-youre-afraid-of-being-ripped-off-youre-an-amateur/
One session I wandered into was a real eye opener. Not so much for the topic, but because of what one panel member said:
“If you’re afraid of being ripped off, then you’re an amateur.”

It was just something that struck a chord with me and I thought I’d share.

Ideas are only worth a lot to people who have only come up with one. I come up with one or two a month.

Execution is the key. Even when your code is 90% completed and you have finished your private beta….you are still only 40% of the way there. Launch date only counts for halfway there in my book, what you do after that makes the difference between the first timers and the pro’s.


Cheers,
Dean

Mini Projectors

Just got this in an email.

How sick is it. Who would have thought from futuristic in Minority Report to this, projectors would have shrunk this much.

Who wants to make a bet on how soon before the firt iPod comes with a built in projector?
Cheers,
Dean

Seagate drives suck

Just in case you are thinking of buying Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS hard drives.

I use 7 of these 1.5tb drives in my Thecus N7700 http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/thecus-n7700.html

Firmware upgrades HAVE NOT FIXED ALL MY PROBLEMS, including having to ship back 4 drives to Seagate that were less than 30 days old and they shipped me back 'reconditioned units'.

If you have to get 1.5tb drives then go ahead but if you don’t have to, then stay away from Seagate for now until they really fix these problems and dont believe all the BS public relations spin that these problems have been fixed by firmware upgrades.

Also another reason to stay away from Seagate is I was surprised to learn that they ship different hardware under the same model number.

In my situation I purchased 7 drives from the same vendor (including a thecus n7700 so they knew it was going to be used for raid), and they shipped me two model sets – fine except they aren’t compatible and cause issues when used together as a raid.

At least with Western Digital (eg the rest of my drives) they announce new models when they change hardware.

Eg. I could be really screwed if in 6 months I wanted to add another drive – as it seems its pot luck what you actually end up with.

There are currently 3 different hardware revisions in the 1.5tb model range !!! this is ludicrous.

Anyway you've been warned Seagate sucks and dont buy their Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS drives.


Cheers,
Dean

How important is the internet

How important is the internet....? How about judging it by this quote

China's Peasants Abandon Cities as 20 Million Jobs Disappear
"Conditions inside are quite stark, with bare concrete floors — but Zeng is able to watch the NBA on his computer".

Man i love the internet - if it was a girl i'd marry it.


Cheers,
Dean

Zappos Quit

How many of your team would take the “zappos challenge” money to leave your company if you offered it to them?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rohdesign/3373798230/sizes/l/in/set-72157615703262704/


Cheers,
Dean

Are you a Baseball MLB fan?

if so email me before midday Sunday the 5th of April for a beta invite to the launch of something that could change the way you interact with baseball.

dean (at) cognation.net

Put in the subject "MLB invitation"


Cheers,
Dean

The 50 most significant points of the web

Sensational article
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49299033-1,00.htm

I had no idea Mosaic browser wasn't available until 1993 or that irc preceded it by 5 years being launched in 1988.

Also who knew that Blogger was launched in 1999???

Be sure to check out the honorable mentions page:
1981 - Hayes Communications creates the Smartmodem (I mean seriously who hasn't owned a Hayes modem at some time in their life (and or a Banksia modem for people reading this in Australia).

And can you believe this went viral in 1998

Trippy article, spent 30 minutes checking out all of the links - thanks for the memories.


Cheers,
Dean

LaLa - legal cloudification of content

Interesting article in Techcrunch today about www.lala.com
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/28/an-exclusive-first-look-at-lalas-iphone-app
Users simply install the Lala Helper app, scan their computer for music files, and sign into Lala to find their entire music library in the cloud.

It appears you have to have some form of authentication that you 'own' the content but looks like the legal cloudification of content that i wrote about in http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/cloudification-of-your-content.html is finally happening legally.

I wonder who is going to be the first to offer similar service for video content?

BTW I still own the domain www.cloudification.net and haven't had any offers on it .....yet.


Cheers,
Dean

Just A Memory

Stormey Skye - Just A Memory, I dont know what it is about this song but i love it.

Happy Friday people :)



Cheers,
Dean

How do i

I caught a twitter post from Dennis Crowley this afternoon

"dens RT: @dataspora at the Google search box, type "how to get", then pause. witness a ten-line window into a hundred million whispered wishes."

Lol curious i typed "How Do" into Google

Whats the deal people, are you all out there trying to 'get some' or regretting that you got some and maybe had an accident doing so?

"guy likes you"
"pregnant"
"girl likes you"
"How do i get pregnant"

No wonder the economy is in the tubes....... is any body working?

Cheers,
Dean

Tivo USA penetration less than 2%

http://www.businessinsider.com/blockbuster-tivo-deal-insignificant-2009-3

Wow I had no idea tivo only had only 4 million boxes in the usa – thought their penetration would have been way higher than 2%

Does anyone know if they were higher but fell off as cable companies deployed native DVR's?

Hell I thought Oprah gave away more than 4million units :)

This link was just sent to me by an Australian buddy, it details Tivo subsciption numbers per quarter, wow 700k additional boxes in October 2004, good times gone by
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/03/02/tivo-loses-125000-subscribers-in-january-09-quarter/13735

I just dont get why USA cable companies are acting like monopolies in this web 2.0 world, they know it cant last. One of the reasons I created the www.LiveChatConcepts.com company was to add additional value to TV, something they should have done a long time ago.


Cheers,
Dean

P.S.

Can water cut it

Geeky as hell but check out this video from the the NYC Resistor guys


Hmm mind your fingers.


Cheers,
Dean

Twhirl

Just wanted to do a quick shoutout to let you know how much I'm loving using http://www.twhirl.org as my twitter client.

Solves my problem trying to manage a personal and a commercial account at the same time and their UI while a little cluttered at first really works once you give it 24-48 hours worth of trial.


Cheers,
Dean

Apple refunds the app.... but keeps its 30%

Oh wow Apple refunds the money but keeps it’s 30%

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/25/apples-iphone-app-refund-policies-could-bankrupt-developers/

Bring on Android, seriously folks “hi ho hi ho Steve has got to go”


Cheers,
Dean

Making Twitter Integral To Your Business Model

http://www.influxinsights.com/blog/article/2201/making-twitter-integral-to-your-business-model.html
Springwise has a great example of a new company that's made Twitter integral to its business model. Kogi Korean BBQ is a food van that travels around LA serving an interesting hybrid- Korean BBQ served in Mexican style tacos. The twist here is that to find out where the van is going to be, you have to follow Kogi on Twitter.

I love it.


Cheers,
Dean

AFACT v iiNet Ltd

http://torrentfreak.com/isp-refuses-to-admit-customers-are-bittorrent-pirates-090325/

Whats 'actually' illegal here is that the content providers expect iiNet to turn off internet users accounts without legally proving that illegal file sharing is occurring.

If the content providers want to prosecute the file sharers then go right ahead..... in court and with proof.

Otherwise...."Joe Blow says go suck your toe all the way to Mexico".


Cheers,
Dean

Performance engagement widgets

I like when companies like Buddy media are prepared to ‘stand by their work and take on risk upfront’ eg they are prepared to do all the effort and get paid on delivery.

Personally except for very few signups do I think the average user is worth $1 per user, but that’s a matter for the market to sort out.

http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/facebook-widgetmaker-buddy-media-claims-138-revenue-growth
Buddy Media's main trick is that it sells its branded widgets with a simple "performance marketing" metric:

Marketers typically pay $1 each time a user signs up to use their widget. Want a branded widget with 100,000 users? That'll cost $100,000

or about as much as it costs to buy
10 million impressions at a $10 CPM
or 2.5 inches on the front page of the Sunday Times.


Cheers,
Dean

AFL

Americans i talk to about sports often ask, whats the deal with AFL is it really as crazy as everyone says.

I just show them this video.


Makes me homesick for a meet pie and a cold beer just watching this.

Cheers,
Dean

Google Voice

Ken berger posted a good summary of why he wants to use Google Voice.

http://kenberger.com/blog/2009/03/google-voice-why-it-works-so-well-for-me/comment-page-1#comment-259

For me until the agree to port both numbers in (and more importantly out) it's a one way trap for consumers to be sucked into the google borg.

I'll pass until they agree to play nice with other carriers.


Cheers,
Dean

Salesforce's Twitter API

This was too cool not to write about.

As a lot of you reading this will already know - I love Twitter and I love Salesforce so how cool is this combination;

http://www.businessinsider.com/people-complaining-about-your-biz-on-twitter-salesforcecom-has-an-app-for-that-2009-3
Here's how is works: Salesforce plugs in to the Twitter API, and customer care reps can start Twitter searches from within Salesforce's service, bypassing search.twitter.com. If a company discovers someone tweeting about them (good or bad), a button click can import the entire Twitter thread into Salesforce's software.

From there, it's almost the same as if the Twitter user called in on a 1-800 number. A PC user complaining about a faulty graphics card on Twitter can be cross-referenced against similar reports that originate from traditional customer care lines, and if a workaround exists a company can tweet back with a tinyurl (or whatever) link to the solution.

Is it for everyone nope, but if you have a bent for listending to your customers this is a natural module to implement.


Cheers,
Dean

Open BTS

Anyone reading this blog who owns a small island in international waters that wants to run their own gsm network....lucky you found this blog, your problems are now solved.

http://openbts.sourceforge.net/
OpenBTS is a software-based GSM access point, allowing standard GSM-compatible mobile phones. It is the first free software implementation of the industry-standard GSM protocol stack using an asterisk backend.

Below is a conference call recording from the Asterisk VUC group last week
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AstUser/~3/E8eeREMPHRo/TS-198843.mp3

Seriously this is too cool, wonder how long before someone gets caught using this for something nefarious like routing calls while evesdropping (eg man in the middle attacks), it would cost you to terminate the calls but if you are snopping on calls in the wall street financial district i'm sure the upside would be worth it.


Cheers,
Dean


Decided to post an update..... the irony of this update is that a while back i got an email from someone within the Govt of a small pacific island nation called Niue.
A few emails back and forth to find out if the email was legit and i hooked him up with a friend of mine Tim Panton who is very familiar with Asterisk, Voip, OpenBTS.

Yep you guess it.... Niue wanted to install OpenBTS to act as their "national cell carrier"

Here are some posts from Tim Panton about him installing the implementation;
http://babyis60.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/the-island-phone-system-adventure/
http://babyis60.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/the-first-gsm-call-on-niue/
http://babyis60.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/the-benefits-of-a-managed-spectrum/

Here is a link to the "project page" detailing the aspects of installing OpenBTS in Niue and lessons learned about installing low cost mobile phone netwroks for small islands ..... in case anyone else is doing a google search and finds this post - lol
- http://openbts.sourceforge.net/NiuePilot/

14 Days

14 Days to go and counting.

Getting nervous now.



Cheers,
Dean

Google lies... :)

lol - i wonder if Eric Carle got paid twice for this design considering all he did was change the Autumn colours for Spring colours in two letters.

Oh btw Google - someone get a clue - Australia changes it's season on the first of the month... Not mid-month like you do in the USA.

For an 'information' company it's a pretty dumb mistake.


Cheers,
Dean

Cisco acquires the flip video camera company?

http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/corp_031909.html
Cisco today announced its intent to acquire privately held Pure Digital Technologies Inc. San Francisco-based Pure Digital, creator of the best-selling Flip VideoTM brand,

WTF? $590 million dollars?

These guys only sold 2 million cameras and they are worth $590m? That valuation is higher than the entire revenue (average rrp $149 per camera) that the company has made in it's entire lifetime?

I dont get it what am i missing here?


Cheers,
Dean


P.S. http://gigaom.com/2009/03/19/cisco-to-buy-pure-digital-for-590m/

Oh My Freaking GOD!!!!

Found this via http://www.gizmodo.com/5169878/heres-the-most-amazing-mashup-music-video-you-are-going-to-see-this-month

Some guy got a bunch of random YouTube clips of people playing instruments, editing them together into one of those omfg-I-can't-believe-this-is-real video.

Just so you understand what you are seeing - these people dont know each other and aren't talking to each other. The guy has sampled audio and video tracks from about 50 You Tube videos and just mixed them all together.

I have no idea how many months this took him but it's amazing.

This guy http://www.myspace.com/kutiman is a legend.

If anyone ever questions the value of the internet sit them down and get them to watch this clip.

This truly is what people like Seth Godin and Clay Shirky have been talking about is 'The Power Of The Internet'

This is the most insane piece of art I have ever seen. The bar has been set high....very very high.
(jodie when watching this said, you know what would be really cool....if someone could put together a whole movie using samples - the gauntlet has been thrown down lets see what you can do with it).


Cheers,
Dean

P.S. Just found more of his work here - looks like he has been doing this for a while
http://thru-you.com/#/videos/3/

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Ha ha ha – I cant find the original email I posted to the Newtech email list but when the Kleiner Perkins $100m iphone fund was announced I said yeh right lets see how much they actually invest of it.

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2009/03/13/mobile-app-investors-pickier-a-year-later

lol 5 companies in the last year – what a bunch of windbags.


Cheers,
Dean

www.TheSixtyOne.com

Check out this site http://www.thesixtyone.com/ i love the concept about how it breaks down 'big music marketing machinery" and just lets you discover.

By voting up and down what you like you get to 'discover' what other people think are hot which might have some issues when it gets invaded, but for now people on this site seems to have outstanding tastes.



lol this is going to hurt my wallet - i can tell already. I've listened to about 3 tracks and want to buy all of them so far.

Wonder how their conversions are going?


Cheers,
Dean

Hulu No 2 in online video

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135187
wow crazy fast growth.


Cheers,
Dean

Broadband envy

I love this quote

Don’t count out “national pride” as a partial explanation for the creation of high-speed networks in Asia, Mr. Burstein wrote me:
Japan then got serious about fiber because they couldn’t accept Korea being ahead, and similarly in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and now Malaysia. Singapore wants to pull ahead again, so they decided to go to 1 gigabit (shared) fiber with really intense regulation.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/the-broadband-gap-why-do-they-have-more-fiber/


So what does this say about America?

Too big and lazy to care? or like the obese dude who hasn't seen his privates in the last decade and hasn't actually noticed that they have something lacking?


Cheers,
Dean

QR drug marketing

Great article here on why QR codes have the potential to change the look and feel of drug marketing forever.

http://www.doseofdigital.com/2009/02/avoid-fda-regulations-mobile-marketing/comment-page-1/#comment-144


Cheers,
Dean

Server location is such a big deal

Interesting article in Ars technica today
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/kafka-in-bloggerland-the-mysterious-world-of-the-dmca.ars

What was really interest tucked about 3 quarters of the way down the article was this
"The US rights holder may have provided the track, says Spaulding, but "people in England or Frankfurt are saying we don't recognize your ability to give away that music."

I haven't posted the full comments yet as waiting for the video to be available online but i was at a session last week where the CTO of Amazon announced the AWS servers can now be ordered 'with specific geographical hosting'; i think this would have been offered ostensibly for HIPPA requirements but you could imagine other instances where this is important.

I've been thinking about this issue for some time but in relation to physical cd's - whats to stop me 'mastering and creating cd's in Russia but importing them to the USA', or if thats illegal then just selling them online and shipping them in by post one at a time.

As long as i met the compulsory license fees of the country of origin where the cd's where pressed aren't i meeting all the necessary laws?


Cheers,
Dean

3D baseball cards

Sick :)
http://www.siliconangle.com/technology/topps-3d-live-baseball-card-not-your-fathers-baseball-card/


glad to know the concept I pitched last year actually works – yeh you know who you are :)


Cheers,
Dean


BTW here is the kinkier Japanese adult version (oh those wacky Japanese and their schoolgirl fetishes) - kind of like the webkins concept without the usb connection.




http://www.businessinsider.com/max-levchins-favorite-startups-are-all-japanese-2009-2
"Geisha Tokyo Entertainment makes something called Dennoh Figure ARis or Cyber Figure Alice. Max described it as an "augmented reality doll." It's a Web cam that's built into a doll. You hook it to your computer and software adds animation to the video. Here's a demo:"

BS Doubletalk

Man there is a lot of BS doubletalk in the Ad Publishing Network business.

Basically i think a lot of people are making money from the confusion and from 'the float' (the payments never passed on or never collected).

Show me one ad network that is honest, straight forward and speaks in plain english and i dont care if you offer me a medium level CPM you have my banner ad business.

If this is how they screw over publishers i can only imagine how badly they are screwing over people spending money with them.


Cheers,
Dean

Eee PC-in-a-Keyboard

Love it :)
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/03/eee-pc-in-a-key.html

buy the 8gb version swap it out for a 100gb+ model for another $400 and you are ready to rock on any monitor with a hdmi connection.




Cheers,
Dean

John Stewart rips CNBC a new one

We saw this last night; loved it.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Cheers,
Dean

Great another BS software patent that is obvious

Great another BS software patent that is obvious

http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/apple-planning-location-aware-app-store/2009-03-06
A new patent application filed Thursday by Apple suggests the computing giant is planning to introduce location-aware services tied to the iPhone's App Store virtual application storefront. United States Patent Application 20090063293, entitled Dynamic Presentation of Location-Specific Information, seeks to patent "improved approaches to allow a portable electronic device to dynamically present location-specific information while the portable electronic device is at a predetermined location

How totally obvious is this - I think i'm going to have to move to Europe just to get away from these BS software patents that are absolute crap.

This is going to affect the USA economy and the sooner it is stopped the better.

Interesting how Nokia annoounced their app store is location aware already a few weeks ago.
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/nokia-launches-location-aware-ovi-app-store-531856


Cheers,
Dean

10% H1B Visa tax

http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-founder-reid-hoffman-expand-the-h-1b-program-and-tax-it-2009-3
Lawmakers could improve the situation all around by removing the cap on H-1B visas while imposing a 10 percent payroll tax above and beyond the benchmark salary for any position being filled by holders of such visas. The proceeds of the payroll tax could be channeled into U.S. reeducation programs.

Surprisingly I think this is a great idea.

What do you think?


Cheers,
Dean

Losers Weepers

Funny how Telstra is acting now they know that they have a monopoly competitor being launched against them in the near future.

http://www.crn.com.au/News/97763,telstra-offers-handy-nbn-tips-to-the-government.aspx

Sucked in Telstra you have raped the nation for long enough, first as a public (lazy) utility then as a privately held behemoth that held all the cards.

You reap what you sow......... "Telstra....Now we are talking"


Cheers,
Dean

Skittles

lol - this is going to get nasty.

http://mashable.com/2009/03/02/skittles-social/
Many companies are starting to realize that whatever content they offer online still can’t match the various social media offerings out there, where the community contributes to the whole.

Few, however, have taken it so far as candy maker Skittles, which replaced its entire homepage with its Twitter stream. The only thing that’s left is a widget-like navigation console in the upper left part of the screen, but lo and behold: instead of pointing you to some company PR nonsense, it sends you to the Skittles entry on other popular social destinations: Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr.

oops :)





Cheers,
Dean

P.S. Then they changed to their Facebook page
P.P.S. The they changed to their Wikipedia page
P.P.P.S It begs the question though.....exactly how much extra candy did they sell out of this 'marketing campaign', not much and thats the problem with marketing sometimes.