We’re huge Judy fans — and not only because she’s a family friend! See her Sunday, May 17, at 2:00 pm, at Bay Area Cabaret, the Commandants Room, Marines Memorial Club, 600 Sutter Street, San Francisco: Winner of this year’s Mabel Mercer Foundation Julie Wilson Award, 19-year-old JUDY BUTTERFIELD returns to her hometown of San […]
Ted “call him Dante” Bahr is back, and describes the advertising sales cycle in terms that every salesperson can relate to. Here’s the first of “the seven layers of approval hell”: First Level: Customer agrees with your proposal, is excited, but needs the price lowered. With that negotiation settled, both parties are ready to go. […]
It’s almost too weird to blog. Most of the junk bulk messages I receive are easily classifiable: phishing attempts, spam, 419s, viruses and so-on. This message, which came to one of our info@ addresses, is just weird. “Oliver” sent it using classic spam-broadcasting techniques, from a disguised server, and from an invalid return email address. […]
This came in today’s mail. I wonder if their ISO9001 certificate includes documented processes for email marketing? From: Floyd TanSubject: Business cooperation in faucets Dear Sir,How do you do ? We are the manufacture of faucets.I have learnt from internet that you are interested in purchasing faucets. I would like to introduce me and my […]
Grrr! I’m in the middle of reinstalling Parallels Desktop 3 on my MacBook Pro, and I’m not happy about it. I use Parallel 3 on my Mac so that I can run Internet Explorer under Windows. Every so often — such as when doing remote admin to a few Windows servers under my control — […]
SD West and SD Best Practices are dead. If you attended last week’s SD West, you know that the event has become a shadow of its former self. As TechWeb (formerly CMP) continues shifting its focus away from the software development market, the demise of SD West is easy to understand. (TechWeb shuttered Dr. Dobb’s […]
This message appears to be sent from Amazon, but it’s a phishing scam that’s trying to steal your Amazon account login. Don’t fall for it! The links in the three copies of this message that I received go to szm.sk, a hijacked Web server in Slovakia. However, there may be other versions as well. From: […]
This spam scam is possibly funnier than the sender intended. Needless to say, this is indeed a scam. From: “Judy Lau” @worldwidenetwork.asia>Date: March 17, 2009 10:43:15 PM PDTSubject: checking the [domain] company’s domain registration Dear Manager, We are a professional Internet consultant organization in Asia, which mainly deal with the global companies’ domain name registration […]
This afternoon, I received a pitch from a public-relations professional, who was inquiring about a special report listed on the SD Times editorial calendar. (I’m sure that Sylvia got the info out of a stupid media directory, since if she had actually looked at the SD Times editorial calendar she’d have noticed that I’m not […]
Many dozens of press releases arrive in my email inbox every day. A small percentage of those are relevant, and spark a follow-up call by me or one of SD Times’ reporters. Most of the remaining releases are deleted after a quick glance. However, a few are funny. The release might be hilariously off-topic to […]
“Not Like You,” newly out in paperback, is a book that every teenage girl should read. Parents, you can read it too. (It’s also okay to read it if you don’t have a teenage daughter.) To quote from the book’s “official description”: An emotionally complex novel for mature teens about first love, mother-daughter bonds, and […]
SPTechCon is June 22-24 in Boston. Click the image for a bigger version! Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick
I won’t be purchasing La Monte Young‘s magestic suite, “The Well-Tuned Piano,” any time soon. Wish I could, though. “The Well-Tuned Piano” is a suite of minimalist music composed in the late 1960s. On a recent trip to New York, I heard the third piece in the suite (appropriately named “The Well-Tuned Piano pt. 3”) […]
Microsoft might be violation of the GNU General Public License. What does that mean for its recent patent-infringement lawsuit against GPS maker TomTom? SD Times reporter David Worthington is on top of the story, which you can read at “Experts: Microsoft’s FAT licensing terms might violate GPL.” Then read his blog post, “TomTom can license […]
This was passed to me… A mechanical engineer, chemical engineer and software engineer are driving on a beautiful spring day. Suddenly, their car breaks down. The three engineers discuss how to fix the problem.“It must be a mechanical fault,” says the mechanical engineer. “Let’s pop the hood and repair the engine.” “No, there’s something wrong […]
Please come to BostonFor the SharePoint. I’m at the Hyatt with some friendsAnd they’ve got lots of room. You can optimize your searches on the serverWith some documents we’ll be sharin’ soon. Please come to Boston…She said yes, boy, please do SharePoint with me. Okay, okay, I’m not Dave Loggins, but that doesn’t matter. The […]
It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Free Software Foundation. The FSF project that gets the most buzz in the media, of course, the GNU General Public License, which serves as the underpinning of many high-visibility open-source projects. Writing about the GPL is great sport, especially because it drives some commercial developers (like Microsoft) […]
Apple has created a new software marketplace with its iTunes App Store. Thousands of developers, some corporate, some independent, have found a huge opportunity writing software for the iPhone and the iPod touch. There are more than 20,000 applications in the store. About 20% of the applications are free, and nearly all of the rest […]
I believe in the Endowment Effect. That’s an economic hypothesis that says that people place a higher value on things they already possess, compared to its nominal value if they didn’t already possess it. Imagine if you own a 2005 Toyota Camry, and someone offered to swap it outright for a 2007 Toyota Camry. Would […]
Speaking of awards: You may still have time to submit a reader nomination for the 2009 SD Times 100! Nominations close on Friday, Mar. 13 (that’s tomorrow). The 2009 SD Times 100 will be published in the Jun. 15, 2009, edition of the newspaper. Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick
Last night, SD West gave out the 19th annual Jolt awards. As one of the creators of the Jolt awards, there’s a soft spot in my heart for what they represent. Each year, the Jolt award judges (and I was one for many years, until the award owners realized that I was nominally a ‘competitor’) […]
Does cloud computing need standards? In a word, yes. Should we have push cloud companies to create those standards now? In two words, not yet. Open, honest standards are vital to the widespread adoption of technologies, because they foster interoperability, innovation and evolution. New technologies are built on top of standards, because standards provide a […]
It was 1988 or 1989 — can’t be sure exactly. That was the era when there were dozen of personal-computer manufacturers, and when it was vital to make the twice-annual pilgrimage to COMDEX. That’s where you’d not only find the hottest new computing hardware and software, but also no-expenses-spared booths and floor shows starring models, […]
I’ve always liked those “balance beam” scales they have in doctors’ offices. You know, the kind where you stand on the scale and push little weights back and forth until it tells you how much you weigh. (Technically, it tells you how much you mass, since that’s how a balance scale works.) After a recent […]
Maybe I’m not sufficiently romantic, but there’s always been something strange to me about Valentine’s Day. From being forced to bring little Valentine’s cards for my classmates in elementary school (as a mandatory classroom activity), to being relentlessly bombarded by marketing messages from greeting card, flower and candy companies, something hasn’t been right. Was it […]
For many years, the daily cash limit that we could take out of an automated teller machine has been $300. Today, my wife and I received new ATM cards from our bank. The new cards say that our “Daily ATM withdrawal limit” has been raised to $409. How the heck do you get that last […]
San Diego — At the SharePoint Best Practices conference here today, the keynote speaker provided the ultimate SharePoint resource: a list of 10 steps to success with SharePoint.SharePoint Best Practices is produced by Mindsharp, which is a technology training and education company. This is their second SharePoint Best Practices conference; the debut event last year […]
Memo to self: Remember, when attending events or meetings in San Diego, to register as “Software Development Times,” not as “SD Times.” I always cringe when I hear the question, “Oh, you’re with the San Diego Times?” Presumably I’d have a similar identity crisis in South Dakota. Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick
For those of you who have been following my separate Mac & iPhone blog: As of today, Feb. 1, it’s taking a little vacation. My blog had been provided courtesy of TechWeb’s bMighty small-business site since 2007. I’ve received a lot of fan mail, and know that there are many followers who like my matter-of-fact, […]
You went before your time… may your memory be for a blessing.Read the obituary in the Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner. Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick