We all know most TV is pretty banal, but every now and then something comes along that provides insight, makes you think. So if you ever wondered what it’s really like to be the boss, you need to watch the latest episode of House. They’ve done an excellent job (based on my experience, anyway) capturing the reality of being in charge. Everyone looks to you to fix problems they can’t handle, and everything that goes wrong is ultimately your fault.
If you’ve read this blog before, you know I’m a big Firefox fan. But the one problem that has dogged me is the inevitable bloat that Firefox suffers when open for long periods of time. I work in my browser all day, and after 8 hours it has usually gobbled up all the available RAM, and sucks processor cycles like a Dyson. Fortunately I’ve finally pinpointed the cause and several solutions.
Reviews for Apple’s iPad are all over the place. Personally, I feel that tablets have tried and failed enough times in the general consumer market to call the concept dead. iPad will likely find adoption in the same niche’s as its predecessors: hospitals and other similar venues where it can effectively replace a manilla folder of documents.
Instead, I find the lack of Flash support more interesting to consider. This seems like a terrible omission for a device that Jobs touts as “the best browsing experience you’ve ever had” (around 3:10).
Today is something of a landmark for me. Just a few minutes ago, I launched my first full-time commercial venture when I flipped the switches and took Fwd:Vault out of beta. There’s an announcement over at the official blog if you’re interested in the details. Here I’d rather talk about what’s going through my mind, lest any of you are proceeding down a similar path.
First off, this has been 14 months in the making.
I typically hate the random flash games that go around the web, but I stumbled on one today that’s actually pretty fun, if only because of the mechanic at work. It’s called Invisible Cursor. The game randomly spawns targets for you to click, but you can’t see the mouse cursor, forcing you to “feel” your way to each target. You do get a quick highlight of the cursor location each time you click, but it’s really brief and is accompanied by a screen flash and the target shattering.
I had an interesting experience the other day at my local BJ’s (it’s like Sam’s Club and Costco). I had finished loading my items into my car, and was returning the cart to the corral, when I passed an employee gathering carts to reload the stack at the entrance. He had already gathered the carts from my nearest corral, so I figured I’d save him some work and tucked my cart onto the end of the line.
Avatar was a fantastic movie. A feast for the eyes and a halfway decent storyline, Hollywood actually got it right. But I don’t think that I was as amazed at the imagery as the larger population, and I can trace that disillusionment back to one place: my time in the World of Warcraft and a lifetime of gaming in general. So if you thought the stuff you could do and see on the world of Pandora was bad-ass, take a short walk with me through Azeroth.
If you still don’t have any plans this evening and will be in the downtown Philadelphia area, you’re welcome to come out and meet me at the Philly Startup Leaders next Fishbowl event. We’ll be having a roundtable discussion of sales and marketing, with Fwd:Vault as the focus. Totally free to attend, light refreshments and snacks will be provided. Registrations are still open, but you can make a last minute appearance if that’s what works for you.
The latest and greatest version of jQuery, version 1.4, was released on January 14, the birthday of jQuery’s original launch. Bugfixes and improvements abound! The jQuery team has put together a site devoted to the new version, called the 14 days of jQuery, covering the major version changes as well as infrastructure updates coinciding with the new release. For example, the documentation site has been completely redesigned, and been moved to it’s own subdomain home, api.
According to Search Engine Land, Google has been letting a “small number” of users try out a revamp to the search results page, and yours truly has been lucky enough to stumble onto it a few times. Unfortunately, the small number are only given a small chance of actually seeing the damn thing, and even a refresh will bump you out of the redesign. Having seen it whoosh by me a few times, I was ready for it last week, and managed to poke around and snap a screenshot: [singlepic=7,500,,,] I don’t think it will do anything to stem the “spartan design” criticisms, but it definitely makes it easier to access the menagerie of advanced search functions (assuming the left nav menu becomes a permanent fixture).
