Funny Age Related Mistake

So I'm watching VH1 tonight and an advertisement for a show they have on Saturday night (it's not important what it's for), but the ad had a 'cartoon' image of a turntable with a record playing

.......only problem though was it was spinning counterclockwise (the arm was also incorrect in that it was dragging with the record anticlockwise as well).

I laughed to myself and realised - isn't that amazing - cd's have only been around for such a short time but whoever designed the cartoon has no idea that records turn clockwise and the arm dragsfrom the right.

It's funny no one else (older) in the production team picked it up......or maybe they didn't think anyone would notice.


Cheers,
Dean

The Web in 1996

People forget how far we've come and what we expect the norm to be today is so different from the past.

One thing I've learnt in my life is if you pay attention to the past it can guide you in the future.

Check out these websites in 1996 - it might give you some ideas for the future.
http://gizmodo.com/349333/old-websites-sure-are-funny


Cheers,
Dean

Clerks II

I keep wondering when I'm going to grow up.

I mean I love super serious deep and meaningful movies, I'll enjoy penetrating the most dense, intense plot you can throw at me.

But I'm sitting here watching Clerks II and cant believe how much I'm absolutely loving it. I don't know if it's because it reminds me of a simpler more fun time in my life (Clerks was originally released in 1994) but for some reason every second scene has amazingly wondrous connotations that just make me smile.

Question is do you need to grow up (watch the last scene) or should you revel in your life.


Cheers,
Dean

Snow Fun

Check out this video;
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2008/01/25/hardin.kid.creates.snow.katu
(sorry you need to click the link CNN haven't discovered embedding yet).















Kid decides to build his own snowmaking machine in his backyard and builds cool 'sledding park'. Who says winter weather sucks :)


Cheers,
Dean

Dell deploys Asterisk

http://vonmag.com/editorial/web-exclusives/fonality-teams-with-dell


Well it finally happened, Dell has moved into Asterisk.

The high margin business of Avaya, NEC, Nortel etc are going to take some serious beatings from this development.

It took a lot longer than I have been predicting/consulting on behalf of some of these legacy hardware providers but it's happened. May you live in interesting times as they say.


Cheers,
Dean

Heath Ledger - RIP

It's unfortunate to hear that Heath Ledger passed away this afternoon in New York at only 28.

Whether it was a accidental drug overdose or not it was sad thing to hear as he's been not only a great actor but a great Australian ambassador living for a number of years locally here in Brooklyn.

I didn't want to make a big deal about this as I'm sure they'll be a lot written about this but I did want to draw peoples attention to what I think was definitely his best but often overlooked movie "Candy" (check out this imdb link).

P.S. For those of you reading this locally in New York check out Candy this Friday on Ch 222 (showtime) at 11.00pm

who owns the customer?

Lol I loved this article this morning
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/21/nbcs-zucker-hints-at-content-returning-to-itunes/

Proves the point I had made in this article linked here http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/laurel-papworth-online-communities.html

He who owns the 'real estate' space (in this case the physical object space of the ipod) "owns the customer" and can therefor write all the rules.

You cant put too high a premium on being the front end of a food chain.


Cheers,
Dean

Hana Linux

Interesting development happening in Korea with Linux.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/17/linux.korea

I've been wondering when something like this was going to happen - actually I was thinking it would have been one of the Nordic countries.

The power of an entire country 'moving' to a free linux OS will have an enormous effect on the Windows platform. Creating the 'groundswell' or momentum to deliver paid support, additional applications, drivers and 'acceptance' can be easily delivered by a single committed government effort to move to linux and as we know governments that are prepared to 'plan' and not just worry about the next general election are the ones that can drive real change.

If you wonder about Korea's ability to deliver major change check out this report that suggests broadband penetration in Korea is about to cross 70% (USA is 20th in the world at penetration).

Watching how this one turns out with interest.


Cheers,
Dean

Trademarks

lol so after talking about protecting intellectual property.....today I'm here arguing for the other side.

So a couple of days ago an email flurry started on the Asterisk list about Google blocking any keyword purchases for Asterisk and Digium trademarks.

If you haven't heard of Asterisk the open source software search for it in the top left field of this blog as I've posted about it a number of times.

Basically Digium is saying they are just asserting their trademark, but this is preventing their customers (the people who sell their services) from buying advertisements on Google.

You can check out Mohe's blog for more detailed information http://flatplanetphone.com/wordpress/?p=450

What does this mean? I don't know but if you are building an open source community and you rely on other people to help spread the word I don't know if this is the best tactic.

I guess some people are going to jump to outburst that this is the beginning of the end and what happens when open source communities get taken over by 'commercial minds' (btw did you see the mysql acquisition by Sun today) - but I think this is just a temporary 'mistake' and like all things 'life is a pendulum' Digium will work it out eventually.


Cheers,
Dean

Scrabulous / Facebook sued

It's about time. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7191264.stm

I've had it with the 'me see - copy you' attitude on the web. Pretty much every idea has been ripped off from somewhere else.

Intellectual Property has always been an issue since the dawn of time but lately it's just getting ridiculous. Facebook implements something MySpace rips it off, Amazon implements a feature and then every other ecommerce site has it up before the end of the quarter.

The internet isn't a law free zone, just because you're too small for someone to bother suing you today doesn' make it right to rip someone off - lets face it somewhere in your puny excuse for a mind you might fart out something creative someday......and there I'll be waiting to rip you off.


Cheers,
Dean