Topics discussed

Do you think that an over-abundant amount of time is wasted worrying about dress codes and work hours at such highly successful IT shops as Google?

Do the numbers make a difference?

If this would have happened prior to the proliferation of the Internet and there was no intent, would the offense of posting information of similar nature somewhere have resulted in the same action, or is it simply the vast audience reached by the Internet that brings about such actions today? And would it have been as newsworthy if it weren't for the Internet as well?

From InformationWeek

AOL last week fired a researcher and a supervisor following an investigation into the release of information about AOL customers' search habits. CTO Maureen Govern resigned, though the company declined to say if that was connected to the foul-up. John McKinley, who previously held the job, is interim CTO.

Earlier this month, AOL released on the Web about 20 million keyword searches from 658,000 users, hoping to to help academic researchers; though anonymous, some users could be identified by search terms. Data mishandling has become this year's fast track to unemployment for IT execs at businesses and government agencies.

Another free encryption package

Cypherix offers their Cryptainer LE software for free. Just one of the free software packages mentioned in InformationWeek's online article, 10 Free Ways To Keep Your PC Safe.

Batteries, batteries

My car battery died a couple of weeks ago and tonight my wife's car battery decided to do the same. Ugh.

Yeah!

It has been a while.



I was only a sub, but hey, a t-shirt is a t-shirt.

Site Working

I did receive a response regarding my issue with the JC Sports site.

Response from Blogger Team:

Hi there,

Thanks for letting us know about this bug with Blogger in beta. You are receiving this error due to Blogger not recognizing the URL you've entered into the Feed page element as a valid feed URL. We're looking into it and hope to have it fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you remove this page element from your layout, your blog should appear correctly. We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

 

The site is accessible again, which is great, but I did not remove any feeds and do not notice any missing that I had added, so I am not sure what actually happened.  I don't know if it is possible that a feed was unavailable for a time period and as a result during that time period the site would not load.  I  hope that is not the case, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Blogger Changes

Beta Blogger is dynamically serving pages (when working).

Dynamic Serving

The biggest change of all is perhaps the least immediately visible, but it affects the entire underlying structure of Blog*Spot. What used to happen was that Blogger would create static HTML files on your Blog*Spot account every time you published, and those files would remain there unchanged until your next update. In the new version, adding a new post simply updates your information in our database. Then, when someone wants to see any of the pages on your blog, those pages are created for them dynamically, on the fly.

This makes the process of updating your blog much simpler and faster. You don't have to remember to republish anymore, or decide whether to do a "republish index only" or "republish all." The instant you save a new post, template design, or settings change, your blog is updated. No more waiting for the publishing indicator to creep its way up to 100%.

Note: Naturally, people publishing their blogs to their own servers will not be able to take advantage of dynamic serving on Blog*Spot. Read more about using Blogger in beta with externally hosted blogs.

Problem loading Beta Site

I am having problems loading my Jefferson City Sports site. It is giving the following:



I have switched both JC Sports and LC Sports to Bloggers new beta and the LC Sports site loads fine. I have put in a problem report.

Hyundai

What is with the recent Hyundai commercial showing the JD Powers awards and playing Reggae music?

Windows Live Writer

 

I know one can use Microsoft Word to post to Blogger, but I thought I would see how a post goes to Blogger from Windows Live Writer.

 

It does state "The following images cannot be published because the weblog does not support image publishing:". when incorporating a picture in the post to Blogger.  It works fine for Windows Live Spaces as one would expect.

Management Methods

I am rather far behind on my Blog/RSS reading, but someone at work passed on Joel's recent posts on Management Methods. I thought I might throw them out here in case you didn't catch them. You may be able to relate to some of the methods, and similar to reading Dilbert on some days, you might swear that the guy has to be sitting in a cubicle nearby.

Three Management Methods (Introduction)

The Command and Control Management Method

The Econ 101 Management Method

The Identity Management Method

Beta Blogger

Have you seen the new Beta Blogger?

I updated the Jefferson City Sports page after accepting the invitation to try Beta Blogger. I wish I could go ahead and get my main blog moved over to it, but they only let sites that have received invitations migrate at this time. I believe you may also be able to setup a new account under the Beta Blogger at this time as well.





As some other blogging tools already allow, the updated Blogger allows for some drag and drop layout, which can be handy, especially for novices such as me.



One can also add many different elements to a page. Items that can only be added once display will simply display "Already Added" after being used, whereas some of the items will continue to say "Add To Blog" as you can have multiple instances of them on the page. Handy for the HTML/JavaScript adds and I like the ability to add a feed to the page.

Football

You can jump over to my other blog to see our High School Football Team for this year.

It must be true

I heard on two separate radio stations this morning that today is National Underwear Day. Not sure exactly what the means, but hopefully I'll be prepared.

Of course, it is just another marketing tool, but it appears to be working.

Someone has a sense of humor. Per the National Underwear Day website, the day was founded by freshpair.

Maybe I could be the founder of "Give Your Fortune to Me Day." I imagine I could raise some interest on one side. I imagine the problem would be that once a person is willing to give away their forturne and they send an e-mail to the recipient asking for their name, bank account number, etc., so that they can transfer the fortune to them, that we might run into some recipients that wouldn't follow through. Oh well, I guess I had better think of something else. Maybe "Delete All of Your E-mail Day", naw. I'd better keep thinking.

Smart Car

I came out of work the other day and saw a Smart fortwo sitting in the parking lot. Not a common site in mid-Missouri. I think they look like they could be kind of fun especially a chopped Crossblade. The biggest problem with the little cars is there price. I would imagine some of it has to do with the limited numbers here, but I have seen them going for as much as $30,000+. Ouch. How about half the cost for half the car. I guess the market doesn't look at it like that.


Crossblade

Not the message you want to communicate.

Not what you really want to see when someone hits your homepage.

LR2

The Land Rover LR2 should be headed to our shores, although it looks as though it won't be until spring 2007.

Encryption

Everywhere you look you see another article about laptops and encryption. Well if you are on a tight budget maybe a free open source on the fly solution like TrueCrypt is something you should look into.

PhotoSynth

PhotoSynth sounds a bit like Autostitch on steroids.

Photo Tourism demo at Washington University.

Service Oriented Architecture

I like Mark Gibbs analogy on this one, "SOA or kit car?".


Superformance GT 40 Kit Car