White Noise

To the proud MS employees...

I am very sorry you had to see this!  This was posted a couple of days ago on tuaw.com and I am still laughing at it.

I think this is hysterical even if you are not an supporter.

Watch this.

One Less Customer

Jason over at 37 signals gave a nice description of a positive customer service experience he just had. I on the other hand was not so luck. Not to long ago I transfered a balance I had to Discover Card based on an offer of 0% interest for the whatever I transfered over. When I spoke to the customer representative on the phone they explained that all I had to do to maintain that 0% was continue to make at least one purchase a month on my Discover Card. So I moved the balance over.

Right away I started sending in larger payments in order to erase any balance. I also used the card to purchase gas for my car, assuring that I would not loose the incentive. After the second month I noticed I had a small finance charge ($3.18) on my card. At first I did not think anything of it, but it bothered me and I thought there must be a mistake.

Google does more

A couple of weeks ago Google created a customized home page and demostrated how you could add RSS content to the page.  The initial choices were few, but it was clear that the the structure had been put in place for the future.  Tonight they rolled out the changes and allowed for more customization and turned the home page to a full RSS reader. Incredible !

Google Home

If you have not seen it yet, Google has created a customizable home page.  It is clean and simple and allows you to add some RSS feeds.  I am sure the ability to add additional source is not going to take to long.  It is a nice interface that is has no ads or distracting elements like Yahoo and MSN.

This will be my new home page

Map Race

It seems that there is a new race on the web and it appears to centered around maps and mapping.
I found this over at Jason's site and I had the same reaction he did.  Check out the new functionality in the google maps.  Punch in your address or an area and you get this

Then click on the satellite link in the upper right hand side and it converts to the satellite image. I suspected when Google purchased Keyhole they would find a way to use it but I did not think about it in this context. Pretty cool.

Ta-Da

No no no... I do not mean the sound you hear when a magic trick is over. Ta-Da is a new web based list application from 37signals.  This is the same company that created Basecamp for project managment.  It is so simple and so elegant.  Ta-da allows you to keep simple web based lists for yourself or you can share them with others.  Everyone should have one list at least it is free.  37signals has done no advertising and signed up 2,500 free accounts in the first 24 hours. 

It is the perfect "bite-size chunk" described by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba in their book  "Creating Customer Evangelists" to get new customers to try things out ! 

Beam me up Scottie

This was another great post from Hugh at gapingvoid

Dear Bill,

First, thank you for all the Microsoft stuff I've used over the years. I assure you, it all came in handy one way or the other.

Microsoft keeps making new stuff in the hope that folks like me will buy it. Windows XP, Tablet PCs, all that good stuff. Sometimes you're successful, most of the time you're not. Sometimes Macintosh or some other competitor makes it too easy for folk like me to get their business, instead of yours. I'm sure this causes you concern on occasion.

So for next time, instead of you trying to guess what I'm in the market for, I thought it would save us both a lot of trouble if I just came out and told you staight out.

Mr Gates, I want you to build me a Tricorder.

You know the one- that wee gizmo on Star Trek that Mr Spock carried around with him. It basically did everything. It basically told him everything he needed to know. A wee computer, about the size of a small book. Very useful indeed.

Well, like Mr Spock, I need a wee gizmo that does everything. A combination of the following:

-cellphone
-digital camera
-palm pilot
-PC
-instant messenger
-web browser
-iPod
-whatever else I can think of once I've had more coffee.

You get the idea- something roughly the size of a cellphone that "does everything".

Maybe with a plug-in desktop monitor and keyboard for the home and office etc

If somebody steals my tricorder, I can just phone my number, punch in a secret pin code and you guys instantly freeze it and all its data for me. Plus the data's backed up on the desktop. Then you send a replacement right away. All paid for with insurance. No need to talk to anyone over the phone.

Sure, you may have to strike a deal with Apple, Nokia etc in order to get this made. Your lawyers may have to get themselves in a hissy fit about proprietory stuff but hey, I'm sure they'll make plenty of money sorting it out.

But yeah, please stop trying to re-invent the PC wheel and start working on the Tricorder instead. You and I will both be glad you did.

Best,

Hugh MacLeod

gapingvoid.com

Gotcha !

How does Google mail catch all my spam ?  and why can't my other email providers be as good. To date every single piece of spam has been trapped accurately.

Try this

If you have not tried FireFox you owe it to yourself to try it. It is free, fast, offers tabbed browsing and a safer browsing environment.

A 10x10 View of the News

I found this over at Micro Persuasion site. Steve always seems to find some cool stuff.

David Krane from Google points to a killer new site called 10x10 that every hour scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. The result is a conclusion about the hour's most important words. The top 100 words are chosen, along with 100 corresponding images, culled from  the source news stories. At the end of each day, month, and year, 10x10 looks back through its archives to conclude the top 100 words for the given time period. In this way, a constantly evolving record is formed, based on prominent world events, all without any human input.