MS Patents Air
December 21, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
add a comment Categories: Puter Stuff, gnash-teeth
Okay not really, but just as ubsurd, Dave Winer must have a script to check the patent office for the word RSS. Several other sites are pointing to this patent application where MS is trying to obtain control of RSS. A serious revamping needs to happen of the entire process and idea of patenting. I don’t have any really good ideas, but like most people I’m pretty good at complaining and doing nothing.
DataExchange Suds
December 21, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
1 comment so far Categories: Puter Stuff, gnash-teeth
Dave Winer and I share an opinion about SOAP and XML-RPC. He also complains about JSON, which so far I haven’t had a reason to use, but I may have to dive in so that I can start praising or complaining about it too.
Social Defibrillator
December 21, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
add a comment Categories: PRWeb, Squirrels, Web Design & Dev, gnash-teeth
I was reading Dave Winers blog and came across a post mentioning Marc Canter. The name rung a bell, after doing a quick Google search I recall him. He was the boisterous, supercilious gent at the 2006 Gnomedex PRWeb sponsored, where he also ungraciously cut in front of me at the bar.
I was following some links from Scobol and Marcs own blog about what he describes as “MySpace in a Box” - People Aggregator. (See http://www.peopleaggregator.net or http://peepagg.net.) I’ve never cared for myspace and despite it’s success and wide adoption by the youth and businesses who cater to them I have no inclination to join the mayhem.
Upon looking deeper, the myspace in a box is a poor analogy in that it doesn’t seem to convey the full purpose of the application. Aside from the business model which is essentially free for non-commercial and open-source - PeopleAggregator is looking for interoperability, extensibility and the kitchen sink. By providing users software to easily and inexpensively deploy (LAMP) their own social network site that can be integrated with other web apps or sites.
It looks like it’s a work in progress, the sign-up requires that I agree to the EULA which isn’t linked to anywhere - I can’t seem to find it. So simply disable you’re javascript during submittal as he’s not fully validating the form. After logging in you’re presented with some standard fare you’d expect with any CMS or portal account, although the layout has something to be desired I’m sure they/he is working on it.
It may be worth watching as these things have a habit of taking off. In general the premise of the idea sounds cool, though I’m not sure we need anymore “social networking” sites - there seems to be far too many as is.
I don’t have time or the interest for a more in-depth review, but I’m sure you can find others.
Home Remodel - Day 3
December 21, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
add a comment Categories: Squirrels, gnash-teeth
Ugh. Right now, directly below my bed as I sit here and type this, a contractor or two are taking a jackhammer to my basement floor. Still that’s not as bad as Day 1 and Day 2 where they were using some sort of concrete chainsaw to cut larger windows in my basement walls at 8am. And to think I’m paying these people a lot of money to do this to me. If my neighbors didn’t already hate me I’m sure they do now. I’m not expecting the usual plate of Xmas cookies and brownies from them either.
My bed has become like Noahs Ark, all the household animals are hiding from the noise, by trying to burrow under my pillows and blankets.
I did go downstairs yesterday and looked, it’s wierd without all my junk down there. They’ve got some framing done so you can see where the rooms are going to be. We also made a quick jaunt to Lynden Floor Designs or whatever the place is called and picked out our flooring. Some really cool looking wood flooring for the bedroom, hallway and entertainment room. We were going to go with marble tile floors for the bathroom and laundry room but the cost was a bit much. So instead we just picked out some tile for the shower walls and then the floors will be a linoleum that looks and is textured like tile. It’s going to be pretty cool.
We also picked up some brochures on exterior and interior doors, shades, and cabinetry.
….did they stop the jackhammer or am I finally deaf? Nope there it is again. If they cut any more concrete away my house is going to collapse.
Also my idea of having a secret underground tunnel from my basement to the garage has been shot down, by everybody. I don’t think Bruce Wayne had to deal with this when he was trying to expand the Batcave.
Chucktastic
December 20, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
2comments Categories: Squirrels
I just rediscovered http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com
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Chuck Norris was born in a log cabin that he built with his bare hands.
As seen in Sidekicks, Chuck Norris can climb a rope with one hand, and one hand only.
Chuck Norris is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.
An anagram for Walker Texas Ranger is KARATE WRANGLER SEX. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds AWESOME.
The best part of waking up, is not Folgers in your cup, but knowing that Chuck Norris didn’t kill you in your sleep.
It takes Chuck Norris 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.
Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because Chuck Norris only recognizes the element of surprise.
Chuck Norris can blow bubbles with beef jerky.
Mormon DisneyLand
December 20, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
1 comment so far Categories: Castle, Squirrels, Uncategorized
Recently I traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah to meet up with some friends and experienced many things, including I’m surprised to say some grand theft, bad food, grumpy cops, coffee deficiency and yes, Mormon DisneyLand.
The bad food was a shared experience that was really pretty funny. As it kept happening over and over until finally on the last day, David lost his dinner - (which I caught on camera in case anyone is interested). I guess I can blame my companions as they chose the restaurants. In one case, even the name of the business was a glaring warning to all that enter. At first I thought my companions were joking when they kept preferring to the restaurant as “upchuck-arama”. It’s actual name is Chuck-Arama, I had to have my picture taken in front of that sign.
Our hotel was the only place which served coffee, even the gas station mini-mart didn’t carry my SoBe Green Tea or other favorite wake-up beverages. I may have developed a type of caffeine related scurvy or something.
Part of my experience was coming to grips with my misconception of Utah as some sort of Leave It To Beaver, crime-free, nuclear family, Pleasentville mashup. The day we were to leave was when my *misconception water broke and I realized I may have built Utah up too much in my mind. I awoke early and headed to the rental minivan to load up my luggage and checkout of the hotel. As I approached the back of the vehicle I realized we’d been robbed. The rear window had been busted with a rock and thousands of dollars worth of really cool new stuff was taken. We were parked right in front of the main door of the hotel, in a well lit parking lot. Of course we had to cancel our breakfast outing, reschedule a meeting and call the police. The officer who came was not pleasant at all, that’s all I’m going to say about him. Another theory floating about, is that I may have broken the window. After that we couldn’t get another rental car from the same company even though it wasn’t our fault, and with that in mind I ask that you to use another company instead of Budget.
After dealing with all of that negativity it was decided we should go check out the Temple, associated buildings and grounds. My first impression of the architecture was of a Catholic cathedral. Being a born-again heathen I’m not allowed within the temple, but one of my companions shared the secret handshake with me and as such I was allowed into a few of the lesser buildings, all of which were pretty educational about the Mormon beliefs. We took some pictures, here’s Mark, David and myself with the temple in the background and the angel atop the temple.
I didn’t manage to get any good pictures of the mountains which looked really cool both during the day and at night. I also have a few photos of me and Jesus that I need to find.
All told it was an awesome trip and I’d like to thank my companions for the good company.
Disclaimer: The title of this blog post came from a comment I made to my companions about the temple grounds being like DisneyLand for them. Alex an LDS member in good standing says that it was indeed funny. If you find it offensive please take it up with Alex.
Note: Misconception Water and the act of it breaking in any tense are trademarks of my imagination and cannot be used without my explicit written permission and all rights are retained regardless of law.
Pictures are credited to Mark Effinger.
Beta Everything
December 19, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
3comments Categories: Insider, PRWeb, gnash-teeth
This post is primarily for clarification of those obnoxious co-workers about the status of PRWebs archive and search engine - Newspad.
Tis true, I’ll readily admit that Newspad has room for improvement. However I’d like to point out to those that have trouble reading English, right there in the logo it says ‘Beta‘. Primarily we put that there so that I can use it as an all-purpose escape clause for not having perfectly running software. I would have used the word Yahoo! or Windows, but apparently those names are trademarked by other companies who also provide software that doesn’t work right all the time.
Newspad is actually a second generation tool. The original code was licensed from some search engine company (which I shan’t name), which worked rather poorly if at all. Now some of you may joke that we’re still using it. And to that I respond with nay. We are rolling our own, a little bit of this, a swab of that, more RAM over here and dual cores there. The current Newspad implementation has been a continual process of minor tweaks and improvements over the last year. As long time users should note, all sorts of little things have crept in this last year. Such as the Beta Image search of PRWebPhotowire content, the iframe previews, PDF links, and of course a Help FAQ.
Despite it’s quirks, or “unexpected features” Newspad has served millions of hits a month, generating and supplying countless news readers, meta search engines, websites and blogs with dynamically updated content via RSS 2.0 feeds.
In fact expect some serious improvements not only in functionality and reliability but in overall coolness for Newspad in 2007. PRWeb has grown in features, services and functionality since the inception of this second generation of Newspad. With that in mind, along with customer feedback, bug fixes and general brainstorming the third generation will be a marked improvement.
And yes, it too will be Beta.
Caption Contest Winner
December 18, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
3comments Categories: Insider, PRWeb, Squirrels
It was last month but I’ve been out of town and so busy that I’m only now getting caught up on my blogging. Terry of SNewz announced the winner of the November caption contest. As I predicted in an earlier blog post, there really wasnt’ any competition.
Terry awarded me with this awesome white penguin and Best Buy gift card. Thanks Terry it was fun.
Cowboy Al
December 18, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
1 comment so far Categories: Insider, PRWeb
While in San Antonio Monika was kind enough take David and I on a quick jaunt to the Alamo. We walked through the surprisingly small structure and grounds. They didn’t allow us to take pictures inside the Alamo as I wanted to take a snapshot of an engraving, well a crude carving at least. If you find yourself in the room where they said the women and children were hiding in, there is an archway, at the top to one side you will notice two distinct and deep letters - A and L.
Afterwards, on the way to a luncheon where her husband Robert Rivard was speaking we stopped by the world famous ParisHatters. After only a brief amount of coaxing we decided to get fitted for Stetsons and headed off to lunch. Monika was good enough to have Robert bring us a copy of his latest book, Trail of Feathers which he autographed for me. You can buy a copy at Amazon here and make sure to check out his press release and
From left to right: Robert Ribard, Cathy Baron Tamraz , Al Castle, David McInnis, Michael Lissauer
Sales Meeting Entertainment
December 18, 2006 Posted by Al Castle
1 comment so far Categories: Insider, PRWeb, Squirrels
I recently went to San Antonio, TX for the Business Wire Annual International Sales meeting, at the invite of Michael Lissauer, Executive Vice President/Marketing & Business Strategy. David McInnis of PRWeb fame, was co-speaking about a new product launch we power for Business Wire customers - EON (eon.businesswire.com).
That evening we had nice buffet and open bar around the pool in the hotel courtyard. I finally met several of the employees of Business Wire that I had only communicated with via email. I also met a few of their international sales team including a nice gent from Japan whose name I can’t recall.
Cathy Barron Tamraz President/CEO, Monkia Maeckle VP of SouthWest Region and Laura Stuaritis VP of New Media Development made sure we were properly introduced and were excellent hostesses. A notable mention goes here for the little bird sitting high above David while we chatted with the other attendees, that little bird with great aim.
As the evening progressed some outsourced entertainment arrived, a traveling troupe of entertainers which where a bit unexpected at this type of event. Shortly after the troupe started their performance of juggling, musical numbers, and various “acrobatics” a second team was sent in. (At some point and I don’t exactly recall the timing, San Antonio’s finest gave at least 12 members of the troupe $500 citations for street performing without a permit or cowboy hat. Don’t take my word for it though as I heard this all fifth hand.)
This second round of entertainment consisted of two young women dressed in lingerie…..wait for it……. on stilts. Pure genius really. I believe the credit for this goes to a Joe of CSRWire, he maybe able to help scheduling your kids next barmitzvah or birthday party. The young ladies did a semi-erotic dance on their stilts waving large feathery things around. Other hotel guests came out to participate in the merriment, it was all quite unexpected.
Despite all the excitement I did manage to get a chance to get techy with Steve Messick CIO of Business Wire and Mark Wehrmeister VP of Web Services.
I’m not sure how they’ll top the entertainment next year, but I’m waiting for my invite just the same.
Credit for images goes to Chris Howell.
