NJ has a inferiority complex

Even people living in New Jersey think Manhattan is the center of everything.


Took this snap when out at a conference in New Jersey today - dont you think it's weird they would describe their tracks as running inbound and outbound, with inbound being manhattan?


for freaks sake....it's a different state and you still think all things lead to it.



Cheers,
Dean

Warning dont deal with www.HomeCenter.com

Whatever you do dont deal with http://www.homecenter.com/ i placed an order with them for a Grohe tap part on Jan 5th.

When it still didn't turn up by the 19th of Jan I called them to query what had happened.

Apparently their website has an issue with the google checkout on orders less than $100 (so why offer google checkout is my first question) and didn't automatically add the handling charge of $7.50..... of course when i asked why didn't they contact me their answer was we sent you an email...... hmmm sorry dont think so all my emails get archived and even after searching no email exists (so even though my credit card was charged they were waiting for me to query them about this before informig me they wanted to charge another $7.50? ....hmmm )

When i still hadn't received it today I called to ask where it was.....only to be told the item was a 4 week ship piece and that it wasn't due to be delivered until the 16th of Feb!!!!! this sucks bigtime considering they charged my credit card on the 5th of Jan.

http://www.homecenter.com/ sux's hopefully this post will save someone else some frustration.


Cheers,
Dean

P.S. Would also be interested in knowing what Groehe and Google Checkout think about their products being rubbished on and blamed for problems by their sales channel partners.

Brownstoner

Great article in NYtimes today about sites like www.Brownstoner.com which is a great site for people looking to renovate brownstones (primarily people in Brooklyn), it’s been a huge resource to me when we were renovating our apartment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/realestate/25cov.html

Yet another example of how integrated and dependant on the web we are these days.


Cheers,
Dean

Design the phone of the future - Conference call next Friday

I thought some of you reading this blog might like to join this conference call next Friday

> Subject: VUC: Next Friday: Design the phone of the future
>
>
> Let's kick around ideas on this, what should the next generation of
> desk phones do? Should they be smarter? More input devices? Bigger,
> better screens?
>
> What features should a phone have? What would work great with asterisk
> to compliment (rather than interfere) with it.
> What's up with IAX? SHould SIP continue as the main star of protocols?
> How can we better use microbrowsers?
> Is video something we could really use?
> Some kind of basic whiteboard?
> Input other than keypad: alpha keyboard? Mouse or touchpad?
>
> Add your own to the list.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
VUC is Fridays at 12 Noon Eastern, 9AM PST, 11AM CST, 5PM UTC
http://www.voipusersconference.org/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------


Interesting, hopefully we can also discuss 'home phones' like the new Verizon Hub.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10149009-1.html

Considering the lack of functionality of most home phones I'm surprised more appliances like this haven't been developed (albeit I think Verizon are over pricing themselves at $34.95 a month - or $10 more a month than Vonage for the same functionality).

They should be using this advanced functionality as a 'competitive edge' to win over customers.


Regards,
Dean

The Emporer Has No Clothes (oh and his flunkies are idiots)

BTW want to see how much these CEO's who got paid last year for running these companies into the ground;

http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2008/091808-wall-street-fat-cats.html?ts

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/105782/How-We-Got-Here-It-Is-Housing-Stupid


Laughing my ass off that John Thain got shafted from his new bosses at BOA after they found out how badly he had run Merrill Lynch last year (expected to be a $15B loss).

$87,000 on an office rug and $1,400 on a waste basket...... this is where your tax money is going.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-22/john-thains-87000-rug/


Cheers,
Dean

Subway cease-and-desist letter set on fire

Lol this the funniest commercial I've seen in ages.



If you want the background, check out this article - it's the funniest explanation on this marketing 'duel' i've read yet.
http://blogs.pitch.com/fatcity/2009/01/dominos_and_subways_fight_turn.php


Cheers,
Dean

Baird - Mechanical Television

Holy Crap, i was just watching the history channel and they had a short segment on the "mechanical television"......!!!!

I had no idea this existed as a technology.

Basically the way it works is a large wheel with small holes around the circumfrence with a light receiver transmits pulses to the reverse at the other end. I haven't found a cool video explaining how it works as good as it was demonstrated on the history channel but check out this demonstration transmission.



There are some links here http://www.bairdtelevision.com/firstdemo.html
but you might want to google some more sites using Baird+Televisor

Either way, cool thing to see demonstrated.


Cheers,
Dean

Anne Hathaway nominated for oscar - wtf???

I cant believe Anne Hathaway has been nominated for an Oscar for her role in Rachael Getting Married.

I like her as an actress but this movie is a POS, i cant believe this crap is even in the running.

It was the only movie in the last few years that I've walked out of it was so bad.

I totally get why insecure people like this pseudo intellectual BS but to be nominated for an Oscar is way over the top.


Cheers,
Dean

So much for change......

Shelly Palmer is saying that the digital tv changeover is going to be delayed 90 days.
http://www.shellypalmermedia.com/2009/01/19/dtv-transition-delayed-90-days-mediabytes-with-shelly-palmer-january-19-2009-2/


What a stupid waste of tax payers money in these tight economic times.

As always, all the little piggy consultants ensuring they milk even more money out of the DTV handover with this 90 day delay.

Sounds like Obama is the same old, same old. So much for change.


Cheers,
Dean

United States of Tara

lol watching "United States of Tara" on Showtime - it's a crackup.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1001482

Toni Collette is amazing.

Tumblr and their free business model

I just posted this comment at SIA regarding Tumblr's claim of 625,000 users.
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/screenshots-of-tumblr-version-5/page/1#comment-4970d75830b7d980006da6fa

I thought it was worth posting the comment here as well.


Yep, i dont see the business model.
It's easy to build a free service for 625,000 users.....converting them to paying customers is hard.
Want to see how easy, give me 625,000 Mars bars and I'm sure i could get rid of them in under a day at Union Square park on 14th St.
Whats the point.....?

Cheers,
Dean Collins
www.Cognation.net

Brrr it's cold

Freak it's cold in NY today, makes it worse that Jodie is in LA for 2 weeks and she keeps telling me it's in the 80's there :)

Brooklyn Bridge Park

Oh Wow, I had no idea and only just found out this out but they are building a 9.5 acre park no more than 5 blocks from our apartment.

Check out this diagram.

Everything that you see in green above isn't there at the moment.

Basically we noticed them demolishing these old warehouses on the docks but assumed they were rebuilding them or putting housing out there.

It's going to be a number of year but according to this website http://www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org/ Pier 1 (the pier in the middle nearest the boat wake) will be finished in less than 12 months from now in winter 2009.

Also i couldn't find any details but looks like there is a marina in the back near Pier 6!! It's like going to bed and waking up with a tree growing at the foot of your bed, way cool.

Cheers,
Dean

Amazon Tax - round 2

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090113-sales-tax-holiday-may-be-over-for-amazon-other-e-tailers.html

The most important thing to understand here is that this is only round 2. We have a long way to go before this problem is solved.

Basically there is no commercial relationship between amazon and their referral agents, this ruling will get overturned eventually otherwise non internet out of state companies are all going to get caught up in this supposed 'internet only' tax.

I guarantee that amazon would prefer to kick out all NY state based referral agents first before they lose the price advantage they have over retail stores.


Cheers,
Dean

Set top box upgrade - woah whats with all the new features?

If you have a time warner 8300hd set top box you should take it back today asap.

It's sneaky but time warner now have 8300HDC set top boxes available but they haven't told their existing subscribers that these are available.

All you need to do is take your box in with the remote and they'll issue you a swapout with the new remote.

There are a ton of new functions in the 8300HDC's, they range from far better tv guide and recoding functionality. Even things that you think would be easy to reverse engineer into the old boxes like having the year of the movie or the series and episode number for series.

The gui is a little bit slower in responsiveness and they have lost the search by actor name function but the other advantages are way cooler.

....now the only thing they are missing is multi-room functionality, remote box control (setting up recording etc from a browser), remote content viewing functionality for viewing on a laptop etc (al la Slingbox), content reformatting for uploading content to ipods etc..... lol small steps huh.


Cheers,
Dean

Blogger export

The Google "Do No Evil" mantra isn't dead, it's great to see from time to time that Google deliver on their promises.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10140622-2.html
Google on Friday released an open-source project, Google Blog Converters, intended to help people move their blogs from one service to another.

This will help you move blogs not only 'to' blogger but also 'from' blogger to other blog providers.

I think it's a huge vote of confidence in your web services product that you can offer data portability....... the challenge has been thrown down to other web 2.0 providers, are you willing to let your customers choose to take their data with them freely as well?


Cheers,
Dean

The Wrestler

Jodie and I saw Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" on the weekend, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1125849/

Wow absolutely amazing. This movie without doubt has to win an Oscar for Mickey Rourke.

This is absolutely the best movie of the year (which is an amazing statement as we saw Milk with Sean Penn last weekend http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013753/ which was equally amazing but The Wrestler knocks it out of the park in a way that wont be replicated).

Without giving the story away, The Wrestler is about an aging wrestler looking at the abyss that is his future and wondering where it all went wrong.

I think the dread that Randy The Ram is facing will be lost on some in the audience, there was a moment where i heard some people in the back row laughing, in a scene where he was realising his body was breaking down and he didn't have a choice left in what his future held.

It's not only Rourke, there is an amazing demonstration of acting where Marisa Tomei shows the entire spectrum of emotions just using her face, from confident to the collapsed fragility of an aging stripper checking out the various 'marks' in the room and realising her time has come and her body cant earn her a living anymore.

Jodie and I were left sitting there as the credits rolled up, frozen with fear like a deer in headlights, this is a must see movie.

If you aren't old enough to have vivid personal memories of multiple scenes in "Nine 1/2 Weeks" then some of the movie will be lost on you, but if you have ever wanted to 'do it' in an open elevator loft then you are certainly going to be at that age were the chill of your future is traipsing at your feet.


Cheers,
Dean

Windows 7 beta crashes trial download infrastructure

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/cloud-computing-reality-check-microsoft-servers-buckle-in-anticipated-usage-spike-msft/page/1#comment-496a180614b9b9a600de88c5
Microsoft has been actively stoking interest in Windows 7 Beta, and they must have known interest would be high once they made it available. So what does Microsoft running out of bandwidth say about the reliability of Microsoft's forthcoming "Azure" cloud computing environment, which promises to solve the problem of usage spikes for others?



Two thoughts;
1/ Maybe Microsoft will learn to shrink their O/S size and that you dont really need 2.5gb for a great O/S.

2/ Does this mean that there is pent up demand for Windows 7 from people that have held off from upgrading to windows vista and that Windows 7 is going to be a smashing commercial success?

Cheers,
Dean

NJ PATH

I'm on the PATH train heading out to NJ..... mmmm warm heated seats never noticed it before - why dont we have these on the subway in NY?


Cheers,
Dean

Superman's memory crystals

You know in the Superman movies when he flies back to his hidden 'Ice Cave' and there is this scene where he places these 'memory crystals' into a 'memory player' and retrevies huge amounts of stored video and data etc.

The great thing about memory data is that we have always known we are getting smaller and better and cheaper. It's only a matter of time before we have ridiculous amounts of memory storage on our handsets and laptop devices.

Considering that the price point for 1TB hard drives recently fell below $99 there is going to be a fundamental change in how we view data.

With the recent announcement of the SDXC standard we are very much one step closer to the 'Superman crystal' of memory storage.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/07/sdxc-memory-cards-promise-2tb-of-storage-300mbps-transfer/

It's insane how small these are when you consider that it is physically holding over 2000+ cd's worth of data.


Bring it on as far as I'm concerned - the more data the better.

Though concidering my recent purchase of a N7700 http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/thecus-n7700.html you could now have 7 of these SDXC cards in the space that a single hard drive takes up as a replacement...... (the N7700 has 7 hard drives and costs about $1400 including the 7 x 1.5tb hard drives).

Hmmm 7 of these as a laptop ssd drive.......


Cheers,
Dean

Satyam - $1b in cash fictitious

Wow just caught this on CNBC Opening Bell - $1b or 94% of the companies cash is fictitious.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50616H20090107

Indian off-shoring is going to take a huge hit which is a shame as some companies are delivering great value.

I guess the value of 'trust' just went up.



Cheers,
Dean

I'm Baaack :)

Finally got the servers and internet connected in the new apartment.

Rock on :)



Cheers,
Dean

USA national debt

http://digg.com/politics/U_S_Debt_Set_to_Jump_2_trillion_This_Year_Due_To_Spending

And to think that during the Clinton years this almost got to zero and people started thinking about how the investment market would change without a national debt market.

What a difference a few years makes.


Cheers,
Dean