Entrepreneurial Connections Conference 2006 (EntConnect 2006) coming up on March 23-26, 2006

Every year there is a small but loyal group of former readers of the former Midnight Engineering magazine who gather in the Denver, Colorado area for a conference known as Entrepreneurial Connections, or EntConnect for short. These are people who have a background or interest in technology and are either running their own businesses or would like to be running their own businesses. Some attendees don't have quite the depth of technical background, but are simply interested in the special angle on business that the conference offers.

This year's conference is being held on March 23-26, 2006.

The conference is run by John Gaudio. Details on the conference can be found on his official conference web site at www.EntConnect.org, or you can check out descriptions of past conferences at my Enrepreneurial Engineers web site.

So, if you're in the Denver, Colorado area, or you live in a galaxy that is within teleportation range, and you're a technical entrepreneur or have entrepreneurial aspirations, consider checking out EntConnect this year. Even if it sounds as if you might not fit the profile of a typical attendee, you might consider the conference anyway. Sure, a lot of technology gets discussed, but the focus is running your own business and thinking like an entrepreneur.

Tell John that I sent you. [Really -- I get a commission!]

-- Jack Krupansky

Here we go, once again, off on a blogging hiatus

As a said in a recent post, it's once again time for me to go on another extended hiatus from the Blogosphere.

I actually have tons of things I'd like to say right now about the state of the Blogosphere, but maybe it's best to let the Blogosphere evolve on its own and I'll revisit my thoughts in a few months, maybe in May or June or July.

-- Jack Krupansky

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview working fine after a full day

I've been using the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview for a full day now, fairly heavily, and it seems to be holding up quite well. The user interface is a bit different, so it takes getting used to.

It's now my main and default browser. I still have Firefox as a backup, but I don't expect to have to go back.

I don't really miss Firefox except for one feature: real-time search, but that's not enough for me to want to stick with Firefox.

Personally, I'd rather have a set of software components from a single vendor that work well together as an integrated information applicance.

So, now the question is what the Firefox guys will do as an encore to counter the vast inroads that IE has now made.

Note: This software is still Beta, so technically we can't presume that it is good enough for production use.

If you do want to read about the new IE 7 or even download and try it out, click here. Microsoft has a document called the Technology Overview. In truth, IE7B2 has many new features that might be of value to users.

-- Jack Krupansky

Some web sites don't yet support Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview

I wanted to user the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview for all of my daily web browsing, but I just visited my bank's web site and was informed that they "no longer supports the browser version you are using." Oh well. So, I fallback to Firefox for this web site, for now.

Note: This software is still Beta, so technically we can't presume that it is good enough for production use.

If you do want to read about the new IE 7 Beta or even download and try it out, click here. Microsoft has a document called the Technology Overview. In truth, IE7B has many new features that might be of value to users.

-- Jack Krupansky

Once again, off on a blogging hiatus

I had given up on blogging back in August 2005, but tried it again these past two months to see if the Blogosphere had improved enough to warrant my active participation. Alas, I'm afraid the answer is still a resounding No.

Yes, the tools and performance have improved somewhat, but the overall character of the Blogosphere still leaves a lot to be desired.

The main reason for leaving last Auguest remains true today: I'm not seeing any path to a compelling economic justification for my own blogging, and it distracts too much from my other efforts that might have a more attractive econonomic proposition.

I really do enjoy blogging, but the economic return is simply not there, at least for me.

One distinctly negative aspect that almost forces me to gon on hiatus again is the fact that so many people still seem obsessed with popularity, either how to gain popularity, or insisting that only people with significant popularity should even be paid attention to.

The idea that even the smallest blog is a megaphone is complete nonsense.

Nobody is offering me any real encouragement to continue blogging, either directly or indirectly. If I stop, very few people, if any, will even notice.

I can only conclude that I'm simply not writing anything of significant enough merit and value to be of interest to more than a tiny audience. If that's the case, there's no reason to bother, especially since I have existing non-blog web sites that offer people access to my complete writings, simply by searching with Google or any of the other search engines.

I'm not completely giving up on the propect of blogging, so I'll go on hiatus again for four to six months and then give it a try again and see if things have improved enough for me that stick with it on a daily basis.

My one-year anniversay for blogging will be February 18, 2006, so I'll make Friday, February 17, 2006 my last day of blogging. I may or may not write a few more blog posts after this one, no guarantees, and no promises.

It's also possible that I may make occasional posts if I wish to particularly highlight some work on my web sites, or if I have some particular piece of news or insight that I wish to share with people in a more direct manner than simply burying it on my web sites.

If you have found any value in my writings over the past two months,I do thank you for your interest and attention.

Hopefully the Blogosphere will evolve in a more positive manner over the next four to six months.

-- Jack Krupansky

The end of Brrreeeport is now

I do apologize for these last few posts on brrreeeport. I see that the first post has made it into Technorati search for brrreeeport, so this marks the end of my testing on this topic.

As noted earlier (and repeatedly), brrreeeport is simply a Web 2.0 experiment suggested by Robert Scoble in a post entitled "BlogCode helps you find blogs similar to…"

Incidentally, if you're a diehard Z-lister (i.e., opposed to the A-list popularity concept), simply add this Technorati tag to your blog post: Z-lister Blogging Network, and you'll automatically become part of the Z-lister Blogging Network, assuming that you register your blog with Technorati, of course.

Again, I apologize for these tests which must look like spam.

-- Jack Krupansky

This no cost Brrreeeport will save you thousands...

I promise you, this is my final brrreeeport.

Actually, brrreeeport is simply a Web 2.0 experiment suggested by Robert Scoble in a post entitled "BlogCode helps you find blogs similar to…"

Incidentally, if you're a diehard Z-lister (i.e., opposed to the A-list popularity concept), simply add this Technorati tag to your blog post: Z-lister Blogging Network, and you'll automatically become part of the Z-lister Blogging Network, assuming that you register your blog with Technorati, of course.

-- Jack Krupansky

Pleasure your partner every time with a bigger, longer, stronger Brrreeeport

Sorry, but this is just another test of brrreeeport.

Actually, brrreeeport is simply a Web 2.0 experiment suggested by Robert Scoble in a post entitled "BlogCode helps you find blogs similar to…"

Incidentally, if you're a diehard Z-lister (i.e., opposed to the A-list popularity concept), simply add this Technorati tag to your blog post: Z-lister Blogging Network, and you'll automatically become part of the Z-lister Blogging Network, assuming that you register your blog with Technorati, of course.

-- Jack Krupansky

Give your partner more pleasure - use Brrreeeport

Just another test of brrreeeport.

Actually, brrreeeport is simply a Web 2.0 experiment suggested by Robert Scoble in a post entitled "BlogCode helps you find blogs similar to…"

Incidentally, if you're a diehard Z-lister (i.e., opposed to the A-list popularity concept), simply add this Technorati tag to your blog post: Z-lister Blogging Network, and you'll automatically become part of the Z-lister Blogging Network, assuming that you register your blog with Technorati, of course.

-- Jack Krupansky

Finally, the answers to all your questions about Brrreeeport

So many people have had so many questions about brrreeeport. Now to get some answers.

Actually, brrreeeport is simply a Web 2.0 experiment suggested by Robert Scoble in a post entitled "BlogCode helps you find blogs similar to…" in which he simply proposed the following:

Here, let’s play a game. Everyone in the world say “brrreeeport” on your blog and you’ll be listed on this Technorati page automatically. Heh. There are also no pages on the Internet linked to for that term on Google, Yahoo, or MSN.

So, now you too can take down the man! Get your due! Get around the gatekeepers. Tell all those A list bloggers to screw off and die! Heheh. Or, you can let me own that term all bymyself! Heheh.

So, this post of mine is simply part of this grand experiment to see what impact participation might have on this blog's "authority".

Incidentally, if you're a diehard Z-lister (i.e., opposed to the A-list popularity concept), simply add this Technorati tag to your blog post: Z-lister Blogging Network, and you'll automatically become part of the Z-lister Blogging Network, assuming that you register your blog with Technorati, of course.

-- Jack Krupansky

Attention all FuckedCompany.com users... you are all un-fucked

Every day I visit FuckedCompany.com to get the latest scoop on dot-com (and other) businesses that are, well, fucked. Except Thursday I visited the site I got the following nice message:

Temporarily down due to a server upgrade.

Check back around February 13, 2006. Thanks for your patience -- stay with us!

In other words, attention FuckedCompany users, you are all hereby informed that you are fucked, at least temporarily.

As they promised, their web site is in fact back up, so all you loyal FuckedCompany users are un-fucked, at least for now.

-- Jack Krupansky

Desired IE feature: Set reload time interval for a favorite link

Memo to Microsoft IE developers: I frequently encounter web pages which don't automatically reload, but which I'd like to be automatically reloaded, like every 5 or 10 minutes. It seems like a browser such as IE could allow me set set a reload "override" for a link that I have in my Favorites list.

Also, I'd like to see the reload occur in the background. In other words, completely reload the page off-screen and then instantly bit-BLT the new image to the browser window. Have a little icon to show that a reload is in progress, but don't blank the screen/window wihile the reload is occurring.

-- Jack Krupansky

Missing imported bookmark in IE or just out of order?

I went to use one of my Firefox bookmarks that I had imported into IE and didn't see it, but I've seen similar problems in the past. The bookmark was in fact in the IE Favorites list, but at the end. All I needed to do was sort the list by bringing up the appropriate favorites sub-menu, right click, and choose the "Sort by Name" option, and presto, my bookmarks are once again in order.

The problem occurs because I kept my existing bookmarks before importing and IE just put the imported items at the end of the menu. If I ever import again, I'll clear out the old favoriates before importing the new.  Make sure to export IE's old bookmarks first in case something goes wrong and they need to be restored.

-- Jack Krupansky

Microsoft IE hint: bring up a new tab for a link by using Ctrl+Click

I've gotten used to bringing up a new window in IE for a link by Shift+Click on the link. That still works, but with the new tab support in IE 7 Beta 2 Preview, you can use Ctrl+Click to open a new tab for that link.

And, use Ctrl+T to open a new tab "window", rather than Ctrl+N to open a whole new IE application window.

-- Jack Krupansky

Microsoft IE difficulty: bring up a new tab when clicking on a link in Outlook Express

One problem with the new IE 7 Beta 2 Preview that I haven't resolved is that I get a whole new IE window when I click on a link in an email message in Outlook Express. Firefox had an option to control whether a tab or new window would be opened in this situation, but I've been unable to find a similar option in IE. Sigh.

If you know the answer, just comment here and then everybody can be clued in to the secret incantations that are necessary.

-- Jack Krupansky

Missing from IE: real-time search on a web page

One of the addictive features of Firefox is the real-time search within the current web page.

Just hit Ctrl+F and start typing your search string, and Firefox will position to the first match as each additional character is typed. Hit Enter and FF will advance to the next match. That's awfully convienient and user friendly.

In IE, you get a dialog box and you have to type your entire search string and hit Enter before you may find out that there is no match, possibly because you have a typo somewhere in your search string. That is not user-friendly.

Memo to the IE developers: Add real-time intra-page search ASAP.

I first encountered this feature back when we used to run EMACS on VT52 text terminals at DEC back in the 1970's, so it's not like some new technology. So, Microsoft, what's your excuse?

-- Jack Krupansky

Using browser tabs in IE 7 Beta 2 Preview

I had refrained from using tabs in Firefox since I knew that I'd frequently have to use IE, but now that IE has them (at least in IE 7 Beta 2 Preview), I've started using them. They are a little more convenient than having multiple browser windows.

In fact, the main reason I had switched from IE to Firefox was that opening and closing so many windows in IE exacerbated an IE memory/resource leak and eventually caused IE to no longer work properly after a few hours. So, maybe with tabs I'll no longer have that problem.

-- Jack Krupansky

Importing bookmarks from Firefox into IE

Now I don't feel so anxious, since I just found out that IE 7 Beta 2 Preview does a nice job of importing Favorites from the HTML file that I exported my Firefox bookmarks to. I tried a few of them and they seemed fine. It may take a while before I decide whether they're all okay, but for now all is fine.

So, I'm mostly up and running with IE 7 Beta 2 Preview, including links from Outlook Express email messages.

-- Jack Krupansky

Exporting bookmarks from Firefox as an HTML web page

Since I can no longer use Firefox as my browser for viewing links in Outlook Express email messages, one of the first things I need to do is get my bookmarks out of Firefox. There is an export feature and it creates a nice HTML web page containing my bookmark hierarchy. I copied that page and modified it a little and posted it on one of my web sites. You can see it here.

That doesn't quite get my bookmarks back into IE (where I have an older version of the bookmarks), but I wanted to get them out of the browser anyway, partially since some people would like to know where I get some of my information.

The Firefox Bookmark Manager has has an Export option on it's File menu.

-- Jack Krupansky

Warning: Installing IE 7 Beta 2 Preview disables use of Firefox for clicking links in Outlook Express email messages

I just downloaded Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview and found out that it somehow disables bringing up Firefox when I click on hyperlinks in email messages in Outlook Express.

I tried all sorts of settings and reinstalls, but nothing helps.

-- Jack Krupansky

Earthquake near Glenwood Springs, CO last week

I just happened to run across the fact that there was a minor earthquake (Magnitude 3.8) out here in Colorado last Friday, February 10, 2006 around 2:48 p.m. It was located about 6 miles from Glenwood Springs, about 131 miles west of Denver. Here are the details from the USGS.

Check out the USGS Latest Earthquakes - Last 7 days web page to see if any quakes have happened near you in the past week.

There was a 5.2 quake 165 miles south of New Orleans last Thursday evening.

-- Jack Krupansky

Size of the Googlesphere: 0.1964E-89 googols

Google no longer reports the number of documents that it has crawled and indexed on it's opening screen. But you can deduce a rough approximate number using some tricks.

As of today, the number of documents in the Googlesphere is 19,640,000,000 or 19.64 billion. That's down 2,430,000,000 (2.43 billion) documents since last week (22,070,000,000 or 22.07 billion on 2/5/06).

Another measure suggests that the Googlesphere has 24,590,000,000 or 24.59 billion documents, but I'll stick with my other measure for now.

These numbers are only approximations on the part of Google.

BTW, that's 0.1964E-89 googols (1 googol is 1.0E+100). The beavers at Google have a very long way to go to live up to their name. Or maybe they should blame bloggers for not generating new documents at a fast-enough pace.

-- Jack Krupansky

Z-lister - and proud of it

Are you a Z-lister?

I figure I am, as are most of us.

I had not even heard of the term before I saw it in a post by Shel Israel in the Naked Conversations/Red Couch blog in a post entitled "Doc Searls and the Power of the Long Tail".

From what I can gather, a Z-lister is someone (a blogger) who is so far from being an A-lister (e.g., Top 100) that it's not worth discussing how far you'd have to move up to be even a D-lister.

In other words, a Z-lister is somebody who lives way out in the longest part of the long end of the Long Tail.

In fact, even the Wikipedia has no entry for Z-lister.

Now, the question is how can we exploit our "status" as Z-listers. Besides, of course, forming a Z-lister Blogging Network

-- Jack Krupansky

Virtual networked bits

Everybody knows what a bit is, but what is it really, and what do we really mean when we talk about a bit?

I would distinguish between physical bits and virtual bits.

A physical bit is the actual 0/1, on/off condition in a physical media, whether it be in RAM, on a hard-drive, a signal level in a wire, or even photons in a fiber-optic cable.

Obviously physical bits are important since we couldn't do any computing without them, but what interests me is the virtual bits which comprise the information that we are processing.

For example, I have a word processing document. The virtual bits that are used to represent the totality of my Word document are what really matter to me. If I load the document and save it, a completely distinct set of physical bits will be stored, possibly at a completely different location on the hard-drive. And if I post the document on the Web or email it to somebody, the virtual bits are still the same even though they are stored in replicated physical bits in multiple locations, possibly even around the world.

And I don't even think about the physical bits in RAM where my document is temporarily stored while I'm working on it, unless of course something "happens" and I lose my changes, then I care very much about those physical bits that, unfortunately, are gone.

The point is that unfortunately, given today's technology, we do have to care, and care too much, about all of those physical bits, when it is really only the virtual bits that we should care about.

So, I'm thinking about what I call virtual networked bits, which basically means storing virtual bits redundantly around the global network, and doing it automatically (in the same spirit with which parity or ECC bits are handled automatically), so that we, the users, never again need worry about physical bits when all we really care about is our virtual bits.

Obviously there are lots of details to be dealt with, but that's the concept of virtual networked bits in a nutshell.

Please feel free to encourage your favorite technologists to pursue support for virtual networked bits as widely as possible.

-- Jack Krupansky

The Edge Annual Question for 2006: WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?

Each year John Brockman's Edge poses a provocative question to a long list of intellectual luminaries. The Edge Annual Question for 2006 was:

WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?

The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

Here's a list of the 119 contributors:

Martin Rees J. Craig Venter Leo Chalupa V.S. Ramachandran David Buss Paul Bloom Philip Campbell Jesse Bering Paul Ewald Bart Kosko Matt Ridley David Pizarro Randolph Nesse Gregory Benford Marco Iacoboni Barry C. Smith Philip W. Anderson Timothy Taylor Oliver Morton Samuel Barondes David Bodanis Nicholas Humphrey Eric Fischl Stanislas Dehaene Joel Garreau Helen Fisher Paul Davies April Gornik Jamshed Bharucha Jordan Pollack Juan Enriquez Stephen Kosslyn Jerry Coyne Ernst Pöppel Geoffrey Miller Robert Shapiro Kai Krause Carlo Rovelli Richard Dawkins Seth Lloyd Carolyn Porco Michael Nesmith Lawrence Krauss Daniel C. Dennett Daniel Gilbert Andy Clark Sherry Turkle Steven Strogatz Terrence Sejnowski Lynn Margulis Thomas Metzinger Diane Halpern Gary Marcus Jaron Lanier W. Daniel Hillis Neil Gershenfeld Paul Steinhardt Sam Harris Scott Atran Marcelo Gleiser Douglas Rushkoff Judith Rich Harris Alun Anderson Todd Feinberg Stewart Brand Jared Diamond Leonard Susskind Gerald Holton Charles Seife Karl Sabbagh Rupert Sheldrake Tor Nørretranders John Horgan Eric R. Kandel Daniel Goleman Brian Greene David Gelernter Mahzarin Banaji Rodney Brooks Lee Smolin Alison Gopnik Kevin Kelly Denis Dutton Simon Baron-Cohen Freeman Dyson Gregory Cochran George B. Dyson Keith Devlin Frank Tipler Scott Sampson Jeremy Bernstein Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Irene Pepperberg Brian Goodwin Rudy Rucker Steven Pinker Richard E. Nisbett Robert Provine Donald Hoffman Marc D. Hauser Ray Kurzweil Haim Harari David G. Myers Clay Shirky Michael Shermer Arnold Trehub Roger Schank Susan Blackmore David Lykken Clifford Pickover John Allen Paulos James O'Donnell Philip Zimbardo Richard Foreman John Gottman Piet Hut Dan Sperber Martin E.P. Seligman Howard Gardner

But click here to read from the top, including media coverage of the question.

And, feel free to comment on your own dangerous ideas.

-- Jack Krupansky

Attention all FuckedCompany.com users... you are all fucked

Every day I visit FuckedCompany.com to get the latest scoop on dot-com (and other) businesses that are, well, fucked. Except yesterday I visit the site I get the following nice message:

Temporarily down due to a server upgrade.

Check back around February 13, 2006. Thanks for your patience -- stay with us!

In other words, attention FuckedCompany users, you are all hereby informed that you are fucked, at least temporarily.

They're claiming that they'll be back up before Valentine's Day. We'll see.

-- Jack Krupansky

Graphic word verification blocks spam-bots

Blogger has a graphic word verification feature which prevents anyone from commenting on Blogger blogs (assuming you have the feature enabled) unless they can read a distorted graphic image of a made-up word and correctly type it in. I've found that it works extremely well. No more spam, unless somebody types it in by hand.

Has anybody had any experience with graphic word verification in Blogger (or elsewhere) where spam-bots seem to be able to get by it?

-- Jack Krupansky

Demo 2006 Demonstrator Presentations and Profiles

In case you didn't make it to the DEMO 2006 conference, here are the Demonstrator Presentations and Profiles:

• Accomplice™ Software
• America Online,Inc.
• ASTAV, inc.
• Avokia
• Azos AI, LLC.
• BiggerBoat
• Blurb, Inc.
• Bones in Motion,Inc.
• BroadRamp, Inc.
• CNET Channel
• Cosmix Corp.
• Digislide Holdings, Pty Ltd.
• Eeminder, Inc.
• EQO Communications, Inc.
• eVoke TV Corp.
• Extricom, Inc.
• Fortify Software
• Front Porch, Inc.
• GarageBand.com
• Grass Roots Software
• Gravee
• GuardID Systems, Inc.
• iGuitar, Inc.
• Interprise Solutions USA, LLC.
• Iotum Corp.
• IPswap
• IronPort Systems, Inc.
• Jitterbit, Inc.
• Kaboodle, Inc.
• Krugle, Inc.
• LocaModa, Inc.
• LogLogic, Inc.
• Mi5, Inc.
• MooBella, LLC.
• Mp3Car.com
• my people, LLC.
• NetworkStreaming, Inc.
• NewsGator Technologies, Inc.
• Nexidia, Inc.
• OpenConnect Systems, Inc.
• Panoratio Database Images, Inc.
• Pay By Touch
• PayWi Corp.
• Persystent Technologies, Inc.
• Plum
• PolyVision
• RawSugar
• Riya.com
• Sharpcast, Inc.
• Shimon Systems, Inc.
• SimpleFeed, Inc.
• Smilebox, Inc.
• Sprout Systems, Inc.
• StrikeForce Techologies, Inc.
• TagWorld
• Tested Technologies Corp.
• The Multiverse Network, Inc.
• Tiny Pictures, Inc.
• Transparensee Systems, Inc.
• Ugobe, Inc.
• Vivid Sky, LLC.
• Vizrea Corp.
• VSee Lab, LLC.
• Yahoo!
• Zimini
• Zingee, Pte Ltd.
• ZinkKat, LLC.

Even if you don't want to watch the actual videos, the profile descriptions are reasonably informative.

-- Jack Krupansky

Re: Blogger unreasonably considering one of my blogs a splog again

As I blogged on Monday ("Blogger unreasonably considering one of my blogs a splog again"), Blogger had found some reason to consider one of my normal blogs to be a splog. I just got word that this goof has been corrected by Blogger. Here's what they had to say for themselves:

Subject: Re: [#380231] Non-spam review and verification request: http://finaxyz.blogspot.com

Hello,

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and whitelisted so that it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
Blogger Support

I'll be generous: Thank you Blogger.

I'm just glad it only took two days for the goof to be rectified.

-- Jack Krupansky

Web 2.0 startup companies

I found this list of new, Web 2.0 companies in a blog post by VC David Hornik entitled "Under The Radar: Why Web 2.0 Matters" Ever heard of them? Do they provide valuable services?

• BubbleShare

• Dogster

• Flock

• Goowy

• Kaboodle

• Loomia

• Meetro

• Riya

• Sphere

• TailRank

• Wink

• Writely

Does anybody have anything great to say about these companies, in terms of whether they seem like they'll be the next Google or Microsoft, or at least be moderately profitable?

-- Jack Krupansky

Technorati experiencing technical difficulties

I've been seeing signifcant delay on Technorati lately. It's starting to get pretty bad. I just got a screen with this message:

Sorry

We couldn't complete your search because we're experiencing a high volume of requests right now. Please try again in a minute or two. We're working hard to make our search results better. Thanks for your patience.

The good news is that maybe this means Technorati's popularity is picking up.

-- Jack Krupansky

Wanted: Your feedback on this blog

Here it is, your opportunity to give us feedback on this blog. No holds barred, what do you think?

Some possible topics for feedback include, but are not limited to:

• Overall impression
• Are posts timely and of value to you, personally
• Do you enjoy reading the posts
• Is the layout okay?
• Are the colors okay?
• Is the tone agreeable? Professional enough? Too professional? Friendly enough? Too friendly?
• Are posts too long? Too short?
• Are the links useful?
• Should we keep on blogging, or give up?
• Are there any specific topics or topic areas we should blog about?
• Are the Google AdSense ads too much of an annoyance? Have you enjoyed reading any of them?
• Whatever else you have to say.

-- Jack Krupansky

Blog comment ettiquette, how to give feedback to the blogger

Here's a question about blog ettiquette, with regard to comments and the topic of a blog post:

In general, is it appropriate to make comments on a blog post that are not relevant to the topic of the post itself?

My own view is that it is not appropriate to post comments that are off-topic for that post.

But, sometimes, I have comments on style or the overall blog, or questions, etc. that are not related to a specific blog post. In those cases, my preference is to send an email to the blog author, rather than clutter up a blog post thread with off-topic comments.

Here's an idea I just came up with: periodically write a post that is specifically entitled "Blog Feeback", "What do you think about this blog?", "It's feedback time - What can we do to make this blog better?", "Any suggestions for this blog?", "Suggest a topic", etc., and then people have a place to do any off-topic feedback, comments, questions, general ranting, etc.

With that in mind, I'll follow this post with such a post.

Note: My motivation for this post was a post by Dave Taylor entitled "Let's Play 'You Be The Blogging Consultant'" in which he gives a list of blogs of his clients and suggests that we "visit one or more of them, evaluate what they're doing, and then post a comment here with your feedback to that blogger." That's a great idea, but it does mean that the feedback is separated from the blog itself and readers of the blog who haven't visited Dave Taylor's site won't know about the existing feedback or that his blog is where you are supposed to go to give feedback. And not knowing about the off-blog feedback area, readers will be more likely to either clutter up the blog with off-topic feedback, or, even worse, not give feedback at all. I like my approach better.

-- Jack Krupansky

Obscure Blogger email error for email post containing a graph URL

Just today I emailed a post for my Finance blog to blogger (entitled "Treasury yield curve mostly inverted"), but received a bounceback email message from postgateway@blogger.com entitled "Blogger post failed", with the following message text:

Blogger does not accept application/octet-stream files.

Error code: 7.575DEC

I looked at the HTML of the email message and didn't see anything out of the oridinary. I've successfully emailed posts containing URLs that point to charts before.

In any case, I copied the entire email post to the clipboard, fired up Blogger's post editor, pasted in the full post from the clipboard, published it, and that's what you can see if you view the post. So, I'm not sure what was in the email that wasn't okay and that was okay when pasting from the clipboard. Bizarre.

One thing: the chart extends beyond the right margin, but Blogger won't allow me to edit this post without destroying the chart URL that has a bunch of ampersands in it. I want to set the width and height of the chart to scale it down. If I do try to switch into HTML mode in Blogger and then switch back out of HTML mode, without doing any edits, Blogger mangles the chart parameters so that Bllomberg can't read them. Sigh. That is clearly a bug in Blogger's post editor.

-- Jack Krupansky

Blogger outages

Blogger has had quite a number of outages recently, both scheduled and unscheduled. Besides the fact that I can't complain too much since the service is free, this level of bad service is flat out unacceptable.

Message to Blogger (Google): Hire some professional, adult supervision to run this operation. The kids you have running this "show" obviously don't know the meaning of the word service.

End of rant, or at least the end of this particular rant.

Oh, but here is the official Blogger Status page. Read it and weep, literally. From Saturday:

As many people will have noticed, we've had significant hardware trouble over the past couple days. We have tried to keep all of you informed about the status of the service and our efforts to correct the problems. Unfortunately, today's problems were widespread enough such that we were unable to provide ongoing updates. One of the things we'll be doing in the short term is to come up with ways to prevent this.

Everybody knows that hardware is unreliable, but adults know that there are technical strategies to cope with failing hardware components, and management strategies for coping with incompetent technical staff. Sigh.

-- Jack Krupansky

Blogger unreasonably considering one of my blogs a splog again

For reasons unknown, Blogger is once again considering my Finance blog to be a splog. So, I submitted a request to Blogger to un-splog my blog. Take a look and tell me why you think Blogger may have considered that blog to be a splog.

-- Jack Krupansky

Muslim cartoon

Some people say that "anything goes" on the blogosphere. Maybe there aren't any strict limits on freedom of speech, but I would suggest that there are responsibilities that go with freedoms. Sure newspapers are free to publish cartoons that parody religions and religious figures, and it may even curry favor with their readers, but I think that being a publisher of a newspaper (or even a blog) also means a willingness to treat others -- all others -- with basic respect and human dignity. Sure everybody enjoys a good joke and humorous cartoon, but please be cognizant that you aren't profoundly hurting, embarrassing, or demeaning the subject of your so-called humor. After all the beauty of a good joke or satirical cartoon is that those who are the brunt of the humor can join in appreciate the humor. The Muslim cartoon "humor" fails all tests of sensibility.

-- Jack Krupansky

Size of the Googlesphere: 0.2207E-89 googols

Google no longer reports the number of documents that it has crawled and indexed on it's opening screen. But you can deduce the approximate number using some tricks.

As of today, the number of documents in the Googlesphere is 22,070,000,000 or 22.07 billion. That's up 3,940,000,000 (3.94 billion) documents since Sunday (18,130,000,000 or 18.13 billion on 2/2/06).

These numbers are only approximations on the part of Google.

BTW, that's 0.2207E-89 googols (1 googol is 1.0E+100). The beavers at Google have a very long way to go to live up to their name. Or maybe they should blame bloggers for not generating new documents at a fast-enough pace.

-- Jack Krupansky

What's relevant anyway? Relevant to what and to who?

Dave Taylor has a post entitled "Why I really don't like Memeorandum". The core issue is the concept of relevance, and its relationship to popularity. My comments:

---

The sad fact is that so many people are really into popularity as their primary filter.

Sure, we can envision alternative approaches to filtering and prioritizing which adapt to each user's profile, but there is probably only a very tiny audience of us who really do care about anything distinct from raw popularity.

Given a choice between truth and popularity, I suspect that most people will instantly (and instinctively) take popularity in a heartbeat.

So many people desperately want to be associated with what is "in" and "trendy". They want what's "hot", not what's not.

To your point, what is the meaning of the term "relevant"? Simple: In this particular context, something is relevant if it is relevant to *popularity*. See, relevance is actually a fairly neutral term, a kind of tool. You need to focus on the *object* of relevance, the "what", and in the case of Google and its followers, the object of relevance *is* popularity, that which represents the direction that the herd is moving.

You (and I) and too few others would like a mechanism to *tell* these applications what our own preferences and priorities are, and then the applications will filter and order the results in a way that is *relevant* to *our* own personal interests. But even if all online applications did so, there is still the herd mentality that would want to "go with the crowd", and go with a popularity vote of priorities.

Of course, you could also have a feature that allowed the user to select another user or group and request to see results filtered and ordered according to that other party's interests.

The real problem here is that we need a lot more basic research into a lot of this stuff. People are putting these web sites up with far too little thought about the core issues. So many of them would barely even be acceptable as undergraduate term projects (or at least that would be the case if schools had reasonable standards of quality). Yes, give them an "A" for cuteness, but a "D-" (and "do over") for failure to deliver meaningful, durable social value. And I'm being overly-generous with that "D-". It proably should be an "F-" and the threat of expulsion.

Enough with all the web equivalents of pet rocks and hula hoops... show me some real value.

-- Jack Krupansky

What IS the size of the Googlesphere

What is the real size of the Googlesphere?

I occasionaly run a small test to determine the size of the Googlesphere (number of web pages that Google has crawled and indexed). It's a good test, but sometimes the results are all over the map. I ran the test three times today and got three wildly differing results: 9.7 billion, 11.2 billion, and just now I got 18.1 billion.

Why the disparity?

My understanding is that there are multiple copies or mirrors of the database that Google builds to index the web pages that it has crawled and that these copies are frequently not synchronized.

To answer the headline question, I suspect the answer is 18.1 billion web pages.

-- Jack Krupansky

What's wrong with blogging?

Pro Blogger Darren Rowse has a great post entitled "What’s Wrong with Blogging? - Take 2" that focuses on that question. What's good is not his post itself, but the comments that people supplied - all 56 of them, so far.

My response: I have no idea any more. Sure, I've had lots of comments and complaints about blogging over the past year, but how much of that really matters?

The big question, or pair of questions, is: Why are we blogging and is it really worth it?

What is the value to society or business?

Answers: Who knows.

-- Jack Krupansky

Blogger email post issue not an issue? Just a delay?

It looks like I spoke too quickly. The three copies of my errant email blog post finally arrived. I'll leave them there for posterity as duplicates of the main post.

Maybe Blogger saw that they were a little more complex than usual and flagged them for special (and slower) validation. After all, you can see how my post about the problem, which was sent after the three attempts, is embedded within the three posts (first, second, third).

-- Jack Krupansky

Blogger down?

I'm simply sending this message as a test. Blogger seemed unresponsive (unable to connect to any Blogger blogs from the web browser). I think it's back, but it may have lost one of my email posts. We'll see.

-- Jack Krupansky

Built-in Blogger support for AdSense

I just noticed that Blogger now has built-in support for AdSense. That's great. I haven't had a chance to check it out, but I certainly will. I'll probably create a new blog to test it before disturbing my existing blogs which already work fine with AdSense.

-- Jack Krupansky

Hoping to get your data back? If only DVPC were a reality

Have you had a hard-drive crash or theft of your computer or otherwise "lost" some or all of your data?

Are you one of those people who knows that they need to "back up" their data, but for whatever reasons it just doesn't always happen?

Have you backed up your data but have misplaced the backup?

Have you ever wanted to go back and look at an old version of your data (like from a year ago)?

I've personally had my share of these problems (no theft, yet), so I came up with a technical vision of a product and service that I call a Distributed Virtual Personal Computer or DVPC that completely eliminates all of these problems. It's only a proposal and not detailed enough to actually implement, yet, but I personally think it would make a lot of our lives much, much easier and less anxiety-provoking.

You can take a look at my Distributed Virtual Personal Computer (DVPC) proposal and please forward it on to anybody you think might be in a position to actually implement it.

I was inspired to write this post after reading the following blog posts which chronicle one professional's so-far tragic experience with his beloved hard-drive:

• Data Recovery Part 1, Including Hard Disk Recovery for Computer Data, and Recovery of Pictures locked in your camera's memory card.
• Data Recovery Part 2. Hoping to get my data back
• To be continued... hopefully with a successful recovery?

My dream is that every personal computer will eventually include DVPC right out of the box, with absolutely no fussing required. No more backups. No more archiving. No more lost data. No more hard-drive anxiety. Maybe some day this will be reality.

I suppose this vision classifies me as a certifiable kook.

-- Jack Krupansky

Hoping to get your data back? If only DVPC were a reality

Have you had a hard-drive crash or theft of your computer or otherwise "lost" some or all of your data?

Are you one of those people who knows that they need to "back up" their data, but for whatever reasons it just doesn't always happen?

Have you backed up your data but have misplaced the backup?

Have you ever wanted to go back and look at an old version of your data (like from a year ago)?

I've personally had my share of these problems (no theft, yet), so I came up with a technical vision of a product and service that I call a Distributed Virtual Personal Computer or DVPC that completely eliminates all of these problems. It's only a proposal and not detailed enough to actually implement, yet, but I personally think it would make a lot of our lives much, much easier and less anxiety-provoking.

You can take a look at my Distributed Virtual Personal Computer (DVPC) proposal and please forward it on to anybody you think might be in a position to actually implement it.

I was inspired to write this post after reading the following blog posts which chronicle one professional's so-far tragic experience with his beloved hard-drive:

• Data Recovery Part 1, Including Hard Disk Recovery for Computer Data, and Recovery of Pictures locked in your camera's memory card.
• Data Recovery Part 2. Hoping to get my data back
• To be continued... hopefully with a successful recovery?

My dream is that every personal computer will eventually include DVPC right out of the box, with absolutely no fussing required. No more backups. No more archiving. No more lost data. No more hard-drive anxiety. Maybe some day this will be reality.

I suppose this vision classifies me as a certifiable kook.

-- Jack Krupansky

Blogger email post issue?

For whatever reason, I was unable to submit my last post to Blogger via email. It just wouldn't take it. That suggests that Blogger found some problem or "issue" with the HTML text of the post and simply discarded it without letting me know why. After three attempts, including carefully checking the HTML, I manually made the post using the Blogger post editor -- simply pasting my entire email message text -- and it worked fine. Go figure.

-- Jack Krupansky

Hoping to get your data back? If only DVPC were a reality

Have you had a hard-drive crash or theft of your computer or otherwise "lost" some or all of your data?

Are you one of those people who knows that they need to "back up" their data, but for whatever reasons it just doesn't always happen?

Have you backed up your data but have misplaced the backup?

Have you ever wanted to go back and look at an old version of your data (like from a year ago)?

I've personally had my share of these problems (no theft, yet), so I came up with a technical vision of a product and service that I call a Distributed Virtual Personal Computer or DVPC that completely eliminates all of these problems. It's only a proposal and not detailed enough to actually implement, yet, but I personally think it would make a lot of our lives much, much easier and less anxiety-provoking.

You can take a look at my Distributed Virtual Personal Computer (DVPC) proposal and please forward it on to anybody you think might be in a position to actually implement it.

I was inspired to write this post after reading the following blog posts which chronicle one professional's so-far tragic experience with his beloved hard-drive:

• Data Recovery Part 1, Including Hard Disk Recovery for Computer Data, and Recovery of Pictures locked in your camera's memory card.
• Data Recovery Part 2. Hoping to get my data back
• To be continued... hopefully with a successful recovery?

My dream is that every personal computer will eventually include DVPC right out of the box, with absolutely no fussing required. No more backups. No more archiving. No more lost data. No more hard-drive anxiety. Maybe some day this will be reality.

I suppose this vision classifies me as a certifiable kook.

-- Jack Krupansky

Hoping to get your data back? If only DVPC were a reality

Have you had a hard-drive crash or theft of your computer or otherwise "lost" some or all of your data?

Are you one of those people who knows that they need to "back up" their data, but for whatever reasons it just doesn't always happen?

Have you backed up your data but have misplaced the backup?

Have you ever wanted to go back and look at an old version of your data (like from a year ago)?

I've personally had my share of these problems (no theft, yet), so I came up with a technical vision of a product and service that I call a Distributed Virtual Personal Computer or DVPC that completely eliminates all of these problems. It's only a proposal and not detailed enough to actually implement, yet, but I personally think it would make a lot of our lives much, much easier and less anxiety-provoking.

You can take a look at my Distributed Virtual Personal Computer (DVPC) proposal and please forward it on to anybody you think might be in a position to actually implement it.

I was inspired to write this post after reading the following blog posts which chronicle one professional's so-far tragic experience with his beloved hard-drive:

• Data Recovery Part 1, Including Hard Disk Recovery for Computer Data, and Recovery of Pictures locked in your camera's memory card.
• Data Recovery Part 2. Hoping to get my data back
• To be continued... hopefully with a successful recovery?

My dream is that every personal computer will eventually include DVPC right out of the box, with absolutely no fussing required. No more backups. No more archiving. No more lost data. No more hard-drive anxiety. Maybe some day this will be reality.

I suppose this vision classifies me as a certifiable kook.

-- Jack Krupansky

Dishonesty still sucks, and it still pays... very well indeed

Sure, James Frey has partially admitted that his book A Million Little Pieces is a work of fiction, but not fully, and he is still reaping profits from sales of the book.

But I'm not sure which is worse, his dishonesty, or the fact that so many people are so accepting of it. The book is still #6 on Amazon. And this only reaffirms my theory of truth: most people would prefer a salacious story to boring facts.

Here's the disclaimer from the publisher that Amazon has posted on the book's web page:

The controversy over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it doesn’t matter whether a book sold as nonfiction is true. A nonfiction book should adhere to the facts as the author knows them.

It is, however, Doubleday and Anchor's policy to stand with our authors when accusations are initially leveled against their work, and we continue to believe this is right and proper. A publisher's relationship with an author is based to an extent on trust. Mr. Frey's repeated representations of the book's accuracy, throughout publication and promotion, assured us that everything in it was true to his recollections. When the Smoking Gun report appeared, our first response, given that we were still learning the facts of the matter, was to support our author. Since then, we have questioned him about the allegations and have sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished.

We bear a responsibility for what we publish, and apologize to the reading public for any unintentional confusion surrounding the publication of A Million Little Pieces. We are immediately taking the following actions:

We are issuing a publisher's note to be included in all future printings of the book.*

James Frey has written an author's note that will appear in all future printings of the book.* Read the author's note.

The jacket for all future editions will carry the line "With new notes from the publisher and from the author."

*Customers should find the Author's Note and Publisher's Note in copies purchased from Amazon.com after April 15, 2006.

Note the link to the author's mea culpa, which I frankly find to be woefully insufficient.

In short, dishonesty still sucks big time, but it pays so well.

Note: I do personally get a very small commission if you buy the book after clicking on one of my links.

-- Jack Krupansky

Size of the Googlesphere: 0.1813E-89 googols

Google no longer reports the number of documents that it has crawled and indexed on it's opening screen. But you can deduce the approximate number using some tricks.

As of today, the number of documents in the Googlesphere is 18,130,000,000 or 18.13 billion. That's up 6,910,000,000 (6.91 billion) documents since Sunday (11,220,000,000 or 11.22 billion on 1/29/06).

These numbers are only approximations on the part of Google.

BTW, that's 0.1813E-89 googols (1 googol is 1.0E+100). The beavers at Google have a very long way to go to live up to their name. Or maybe they should blame bloggers for not generating new documents at a fast-enough pace.

-- Jack Krupansky