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May 31, 2004

Read Hit List by Lawrence Block

Had a couple plane rides last week, so read Hit List by Lawrence Block. Sometimes the brain needs a break. This kind of thing gives it. I usually like Lawrence Block's murder mysteries, but I must admit that this one fell way short. It was a different character than he usually writes about (maybe the only book with that guy since it didn't sell that well). The protagonist is a hit man, a contract killer. He is also a stamp collector (supposed to give him depth and ellicit empathy). Single living in a small non-descript flat in New York. Works for a "suburban housewife" out in New Jersey. Very dispassionate, but not in a cruel way. In a "well, this is my job and I better get it done so I can go to the stamp dealer" sort of way. He is not very complex, although Block tries to make him so. During a couple of his jobs he has a "funny feeling" and strange things happen. Like two people being shot in the head with a 22 in a hotel room he just moved from. And two of his targets getting killed by other means right in front of him without his help. Eventually he figures out that a competitor is trying to kill him and has successfully killed other guys as a way to reduce the competition. Sometimes I wish that tactic were available to my startups. Of course this eventually leads him to try to get the drop on the other guy and I won't bore you with the details there. Lets just say the end peters out into nothingness. Not really a page turner. Not an engaging character. But provides a good break from computer manuals and business plans to change the world.

Posted by Martin at 6:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 27, 2004

Google blind to audio and video

Search engines try to find their sound | CNET News.com. The press is finally writing about what I have been saying for awhile. Effective search for audio and video is hard. HTML spiders won't get you there. Look for a post about a new start-up coming out of stealth next week. I am sworn to secrecy till then.

Posted by Martin at 7:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 25, 2004

SPF embracing Microsoft Sender

On mengwong's site He announces his integration of Microsoft Sender Policy thingy into "new SPF". Trying to stay relevant. There is still a VERY long way to go for anyone to change the e-mail standard in a generally accepted way. Don't look for agreement any time soon.

Posted by Martin at 9:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bloglet is cool

Bloglet is a service that will put an e-mail box on your blog and automatically send subscribers your new posts each day. More blog specific than notifiylist.com. I may try it out.

Posted by Martin at 9:10 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

May 21, 2004

My FIRE 2004 five year predictions

Lase year I attended this conference and made some pretty specific predictions. Next week, I have to check my progress and make some more comments. You, dear reader, get a sneak preview!

Martin Tobias
FIRE 2004 Hot Spot comments, May 25, 2004

Mark, thanks for hosting this great event. I really enjoyed the event last year. In fact for me it was the watershed event signaling Tech is back! Based on the number of imitators and the rise in the markets since then, I would say your timing was impeccable as usual! Thanks for keeping the event in San Diego as I have been out surfing every morning at 5:30am which for a guy from Seattle is a real treat. This year I will try to make the morning sessions on time.

Last year I told of a story at another conference where a CBS employee asked me if she should change jobs based on my predictions. I warned no-one to do that on my account last year. Unfortunately it looks like events have conspired to cause that to happen to at least one FIRE participant this last year though, and I will get to that in a minute. Let me say it again, no-one please change jobs based on these thoughts today!

Last year I stuck my neck out with some pretty specific predictions for the next 2-5 years rather than the Macro view that many have taken. Lets see how I did and let me make some more VERY specific predictions. I have broken them up into ten things I think WILL happen and seven things I HOPE happen. Here they are:

What WILL happen

My record is 6 of 10 right, 2 inconclusive and 2 dead wrong.

  1. PC economics will come to networking gear.

How doing? One of my companies, IP Fabrics is shipping an Alpha of their OS software on Intel reference hardware to five customers in June. This is happening. Look for networking gear based on the Intel IXP2800 family to be on shelves in volume in two years. On track.

  1. The first meaningful products will be delivered to consumers from nano-technology.

How doing? Nano-Tex started shipping four new fabrics for clothing in volume, most famous is probably the Nano-Care wrinkle free pants at EddieBauer. Gap, Old Navy, Nike, and Perry Ellis are also shipping products today. Defense applications will drive things like Metal Rubber from NanoSonic into the market by next year. More coming next year.

  1. The interlopers from selling toothpaste would leave.

How doing? I believe the last wave have been largely washed out. The Quality of teams I am seeing as a VC now has picked up significantly. A corollary prediction is that we will see another wave of interlopers in two years back into tech after the Google IPO and others. This started in the right direction, but I am
afraid will go backward again.

  1. There will be VC bankruptcies.

How doing? Available funds to start-ups will go back to early 90's levels. How doing: A few VC consolidations, some fund give backs, lots of partners "retiring", office closures. Still $68B overhang, Venture firms raised $11B in 2003, way down from 2000, but on par with mid-1990s. $1.5B cut from VC funds (5 repeat reducers), down from $5.7B in 02. Brobeck and VLG closed. Disclosure plagued VCs. Smaller funds mean smaller VC firms. On track (unfortunately).

  1. Real broadband applications will be delivered and used in meaningful numbers.

How doing? At the conference last year 20M broadband households. In April Pew said 55% of adults have broadband at home or office (68M). Fully 48M adults have broadband connections at home! Reasons:

         i. Connection too slow or frustrating, 36%.
ii. Download files faster, 21%.
    iii. Job-related tasks, 10%
    iv. "Always on" connection, 7%
    v. Use phone and Internet at same time 7%
   


  1. SPAM will be a thing of the past.

How doing:Well Bill Gates picked up my charge and says he will take care of Spam by 2006.Unfortunately, the problem has gotten worse. April was the first month ISP's recorded over 80% of their mail SPAM! You will hear more on my panel. I think I am wrong on this one.

  1. Instant Messaging becomes a real business application.

How doing? Valuations on private companies are up, but real business applications are still lacking. Mostly compliance driven.

  1. There will be no carrier model for WIFI.

How doing? I apologized to Larry from Cometa for this one last year.Seems like it came to pass sooner than I expected at least for Cometa. Portland Oregon is the "most wired city" with over 100 free hotspots in 2003. Hotspots went from about 12,000 in 2002 to 28,000 in 2003, but that is only "commercial". No-one is making money and free sites are growing faster. In my own neighborhood I have six at my house! A study by Park Associates in late 2003 showed less than 5% of internet users have tried a public hotspot and less than 3% of THOSE have become subscribers. Joe Laszlo of Jupiter Research said it best: "Paraphrasing [Federal Reserve chairman] Alan Greenspan, the degree of exuberance about the revenue potential of public hotspots borders on the irrational". I am right on this one.

  1. Round 2 of telco bankruptcies.

How doing? Can you say WorldCom? More to come.

  1. There will be no IPO market for small unprofitable tech companies.

How doing? I am wrong on this. I see lots in registration, all waiting for Google. I guess hope springs eternal. I am wrong here.

What I HOPE happens:


  1. We have made very little progress on the things I Hoped would happen last year, but I should note some forward progress on


    1. IPV6 upgrade which is being pushed by China which ended up with the short end of the IP stack.

    2.  


  2. Backward progress on:

    1. Applying VC money to other than F500. VC's are back to their herd mentality.

    2. Decrease technology footprint in my life. I bought 7 new computers, 5 new digital cameras, two new camcorders, 5 music players, 8 new home entertainment devices and became an addicted blogger. Some things never change.


  3. I only have ONE thing that I hope happens in the next year! I said it last year.


    1. The next president should make energy independence the #1 national goal for the next 10 years. Just like Kennedy did with the space race. Americans will take up the challenge and probably beat the goal. This would solve so many American and world issues, I can't even start the list.


Posted by Martin at 9:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Round up of Mote companies and VCs who invest in them

Thompson just published a decent round-up article. I am still looking for my investment in sensor networks. Not sure it is in the VERY low power range. Maybe more cellular.

Posted by Martin at 7:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

P2P DVD sharing legally

PEERFLIX.com is a spiffy new web site in the "why didn't I think of that?" application category. Think a P2P version of Netflix. Why pay $19.99 per month to borrow NetFlix owned DVDs? You have to pay all their overhead and shipping and handling, etc. Where do you get your best recommendations for movies? Your friends. Why not just trade with your friends, or friends of friends? Unlock the lending potential of all those bought DVD's sitting on shelves out there. I have over 300 in my house and hardly ever watch them. I am sure the legality of enabling this kind of massive scale trading is going to be challenged by the studios. After all, they get some percentage of NetFlix revenue and all other "rental" services. But this is just doing what you can do with your friends anytime you want. Trade DVD's you don't watch much for those that you do want to watch.

I just signed up and haven't made any trades yet, but here is how it works.

- Sign up and create an account.
- You can buy a $10 starter pack of swaps ($1 per) with 10 mailers which will be sent to your house. Or you can sign up form $5 per month for unlimited swaps (based on the popularity of your library, etc.)
- Enter DVD's you own by UPC code in the "what I Own" tab.
- Browse the "Available" DVDs section, rating ones you know your opinion of and adding those you want to see to your "What I Want" tab.

While I haven't tried it yet, supposedly my marking that I want a movie (and it being on the available list) means that one (or more) of the owners of that movie will get a message for them to send it to me using one of their handy dandy mailers. The DVD's I added to my "what I Own" tab will show up as available. Now of course I don't have to send them to anyone if I don't want to, but I assume you won't get "karma" points if you don't share and share alike. There is a rudimentary karma system much like E-bay's feedback system for reporting on transactions. Since I haven't done any I will have to wait to review that. Since the system moderates all trades and inventory movement, you are supposed to be able to "ask" for your DVD back from the system at any time. That will be interesting. Because my DVD may not come right back to me. It will probably go on to the next person who wants to see it. You can keep a DVD as long as you want (unless it is someone else's and they ask for it back). All DVD's are guaranteed against breakage and loss by the company. Totally safe! They also of course try to sell you more while you are there.

Bye bye NetFlix.

Posted by Martin at 6:42 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Here is a nifty web service

free mailing lists from Notify List . com. Just sign up on their site for an account and copy some javascript into your site. When people put their e-mail into the box, it goes onto your list and you can mail away through their browser. Pretty nifty and simple, database-less, programming-less way to implement one-way e-mail notify lists. Have NO idea what the business model is, but I will us it!

Posted by Martin at 2:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WMD found in Iraq, why isn't the media telling us?

Yesterday, an artillery shell filled with Sarin was found. Yet it was buried on page 13 of the NYT and page 11 of the Post. The lead story in major media still seem to be the search for some sort of conspiracy in the prison scandal. I guess the media doesn't want the facts of WMD being found to disturb their world view that there aren't any. Do you really think that one shell is the only one? The way it was fired suggests the people who used it didn't know it was Sarin. Expect more.

Posted by Martin at 6:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 20, 2004

Spam Phisher Fries!

A 20-year-old Texas man has been convited of “phishing”, and sentenced to 4 years.

Zachary Hill was found guilty of sending email which appeared to be from PayPal and AOL, telling his targets that they needed to provide credit card and bank account numbers or their accounts “would be cancelled”. 

Did it work?    Apparently to the tune of at least $50,000!

Was it worth it?  Well, at $12,500 per year, before attorneys fees, if it was worth it to him, he’s probably going to be experiencing a better standard of living for the next four years than he’s used to.





[The Spam Weblog] [channelTitle]

Posted by Martin at 4:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MT 3.0 first impressions

Installed MT 3.0 today. I installed the free version since it supports the number of blogs and authors I need so I won't be jumping in on the licensing comments. Some first impressions:

I installed the system in a separate directory with a separate URL so I could keep running 2.664. This reqired a couple of things that were not clear in the installation scripts. To make my updates to mt.cfg, I just opened two WordPad windows and scrolled thorugh my 2.664 file, copying the changes to my new 3.0 file. This worked fine, except I was hoping to reuse the same MySql database. No such luck. The MT.CGI wouldn't let me sign-on and the mt-load.cgi barfed saying "MT-Author" table already existed. So I created a new database, changed the mt.cfg and ran MT-load.cgi. Bob's your uncle, mt.cgi log-on worked fine.

There is a little inconsistency in the installation script for the full 3.0 version and the upgrade. In the upgrade part they talk about moving mt.js to the mt-static directory, but don't mention this in the fresh install. Being safe, I moved it anyway.

The next glitch was the import of entries. I had of course backed up all entries before I started any of this just in case something walked over the prior install. The import function does not correctly interpret HTML. So all the links come through as text instead of hyperlinks. Ouch! I wonder if I twiddle the configuration around auto interpretition of HTML if that would fix it. Need to work on that.

The next set of weirdness is the new features. I don't see any meaningful ones. There is alot being said about the comment upgrades, but it is just adding the ability to accept TypeKey authors and to moderate comments. TypeKey is something that can be spoofed as the barrier to an account is very low. And it is only designed for other blog authors. What about people commenting who are just readers? Anyway, you still need to run MT-Blacklist and to rename your comment script to be safe. Which I did. We will see how it goes when I go live with the convert. In the last week, even with MT-Blacklist and renamed comment.cgi I have been hit with over 100 spam comments.

The much vaulted new plug-in architecture is hard to figure out. I am working with a programmer to write a plug-in for their competition, but his initial review of the code is that they didn't go far enough to open up the UI. Wait for a full review of those functions.

Posted by Martin at 4:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Blog platform review

Thanks John, this is just what the doctor ordered.
a little ludwig goes a long way: CMS comparison chart

Posted by Martin at 3:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Write your first MT plug-in

this article: O'Reilly Network: Developing Movable Type Plug-ins [Mar. 19, 2003]
Gives a very good step by step process through writing your first MT plug-in. Since I am doing that, it was a great intro. It was written for 2.6, so the new 3.0 stuff is not in there, but you can find that in the MT documentation.

Posted by Martin at 1:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 19, 2004

MT licensing uproar

this thread Movable Type RIP | Metafilter and others point to a rift in the base of MT early adopters. Now I am not of the "I only use free software" camp. Like John, I don't mind paying for professional services. One thing I do mind is that initially there was no upgrade pricing. I made a $40 donation to Six Apart. And I paid for an installation (of an early version) which I believe Mena did herself. Getting SOMETHING for that would be great. I hear that you can get credit for your previous donations by sending in your Paypal transaction ID. I am testing 3.0 now and will probably stick with the free version for now as I don't host that many blogs and only have one author. If you are hosting blogs for other people and have lots of authors, you should probably pay.

Posted by Martin at 12:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Micropublishing gets money

The New York Post Online Edition: business is confirming that Mark Cuban invested in Weblogs Inc. And that Gawker Media, their competitor, is in the black with their two publications. Micropublishing is moving on...

Posted by Martin at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 18, 2004

Spam this guy

This guy wants to do a Gmail Spam Test to see how quickly you can fill up 1 gig. I just sent him a 112mb file. I bet they have restrictions on attachment size, but it should be fun. Spam this guy, he needs it.

Posted by Martin at 10:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Review of free vs commercial Linux Spam solutions on server

this article Fighting Spam and Viruses at the Server, Part V: The Linux Edition is part of a series done by these reporters that actually does a good job reviewing at a high level the different approaches to server side spam fighting. And comparing what you get with free versus commercial products. A good place to start for Linux solutions.

Posted by Martin at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Frontbridge releases top 10 spams for April

FrontBridge Technologies Exposes April's Most Abused Spam Subject Headlines. A surprising 80% of mail they filter is spam! Phishing scams are the fastest growing sector of spam.

Posted by Martin at 9:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 17, 2004

The Powerizers, two months into it

I have had my Powerizers for two months now. Time to do a review (and a couple of readers have asked for a review as well - must be responsive to my public).

I have actually now ridden them five or six times. The high level review is FUN FUN FUN! The details are a little more sobering. While not difficult to learn, you should take some basic precautions which I (being of small brain and big ego) of course did not. Immediately when I got them in the office, I strapped them on sitting in my chair and pulled myself up by the edge of my cube and took off walking! It is easy to start going, you just lean forward and pick up one foot after the other. Just like stilts actually. About 3 foot tall stilts. But you are not really getting any of the benefit of the jumping or spring. I wondered around the office peeking over cubes and scaring people for awhile. The receptionists just shook their heads at yet another gadget I was trying out. Unlike the Segway, I didn't run into the wall with this one. So out of the box I was able to walk around with no trouble. To get them off, make sure you sit down in a chair as it is quite a way down. To get started, lean forward and walk like normal. Stopping may be a little tricky at first, but just don't get going too fast.

The real fun started when I went outside to try the jumping. I just took them outside and sad down on the sidewalk and strapped them on with my jeans and tennis shoes. The first problem was getting up with these extensions on my legs. It is not a intuitive thing. The trick is to get on one knee then life the other leg up and put the "foot" on the ground, then press up on that one to bring the other leg up. So I take off walking then speed up into taking BIG MOON WALK strides. Very soon I am going too fast and I can't get the feet pegs in the right place with every step and I plunge one of them off the concrete sidewalk into the grass. Immediate forward motion stop. If I were skiing you would call it a yard sale. Just like catching an edge. Down I went from a high height. Of course no gloves or helmet. Ouch! That was it for that day.

Back home the next week I was smarter and put on some leather gloves and a helmet and a long sleeve jacket. With a couple practice runs I got very good at jumping about 5 feet in the air and taking about 10 foot steps. It is totally fun! And quite a bit more of a workout than I thought it would be. Since then I have suited up for a run workout and gone out with helmet and wrist guards. After two minutes you are breathing heavy and having fun.

Lets me clear. These things have no practical purpose in life except to bring a smile to your face (and maybe some bystanders too). They are not a better way to get from point A to point B. They are tricky to learn, but not difficult for someone good at balancing sports. You need to be fairly athletic to enjoy them. But if you like the wide gaping childish grin of doing something so totally fun it should be illegal, order your pair today!

Posted by Martin at 11:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

digital Home working group

Well I found the Digital Home Working Group: Home, where the big boyz, Microsoft, Intel, etc. are trying to drive standards for the "digital home". Whatever that is. There are some useful links and stories here, but not much practical which will actually help me make the hard decisions building my own house.

The most useful resource I found here was a link to HomeToys.com actually. They are actually selling things today that you can buy and install in your house. A much larger and more interesting selection than many sites that I have found with a heavy X10 focus.

Posted by Martin at 9:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ringtone aggregators getting squeezed

More evidence today from PaidContent.org of ring tone aggregators getting squeezed by publishers, sometimes down to zero on the revenue split. And all these deals are short term. This is the problem with making money on someone else's content. They control your revenue share. As I have said many times before, the music industry will never allow a meaningful amount of money to be taken off the table by anyone else in the chain. They will always get the largest piece and will squeeze everyone else with competition. Ouch!

Posted by Martin at 9:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Been thinking about micropublishing lately

I like what the local boys over at Citadel Media are doing with The Insiders. There is a business in providing a common publishing platform across both print and the web to drive value to subscribers. Then I find NEPA which is a newsletter and electornic publishing association. Lots of useful links and resources there. I wonder what their thoughts about the transition from e-mail based newsletters to blog sort of publishing systems is? The guy who I have seen do it the best is PaidContent. For the professional journalist there will be lots of platform options. Even for the semi-professional. Now for the average person who wants to make a couple bucks on the side, I haven't seen a solution yet.

Posted by Martin at 9:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 13, 2004

Want to buy cocaine dealer stuff?

Check out the Treasury Department list of seized stuff. You can be mac'n it like the big dogs in no time. Hey, there is a submarine!

Posted by Martin at 11:22 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Wired is behind

I remember coming unglued when I first saw the Fetish section of Wired. It was Nirvana. I told Andrew Ander who was running Hotwired at the time that I wanted a store where I could just give them my credit card and just have them ship me everything that was reviewed in Fetish every month. The section has gotten a little less leading edge over the years. On-line the section of their web page is GadgetLab. But they only review a couple things each week. And they have a newsletter to subscribe to but no RSS feed.

No RSS feed? How 1990 of them. Only e-mail based newsletter? That is so last decade. A shame to see Wired fall behind.

Posted by Martin at 10:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A site I am not going to buy from

I usually only post about things I like on the net. But this one was so bad I have to mention it. Workout Manuals, Fitness Programs, Fat Loss, Exercise, Health Lifestyle, Craig Ballantyne. I have a pretty well equiped home gym. Over the years though I have gotten into a routine with my workouts. I need some variety. So I read in Men's Health about this site where a trainer has a bunch of different work-out programs that you can buy. Sounds good. But on the site there is only the barest of descriptions about what the actual product is. Basically a title of a progam and a buy now button. No samples. Lots of claims about "the best fitness of your life" and quotes from supposed customers. It is worse than the late night exercise fitness informertials. Completely content free. All marketing.

That is now how to sell something to me.

Posted by Martin at 10:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Here is a fun service

Have a phone number and want to know who it belongs to? There is a web page for you. www.reversephonedirectory.com. Basically the site uses three other data providers to do the look up, sortof like a meta crawler for search. You can try each web service. I put in my home phone number and my name and address faithfully showed up. My cell number came back with nothing. Good. They have options to do bulk look-ups for money. I can see how that would be good for marketers trying to clean or add to their lists. But you would have to believe the sources the site was using were as good or better than yours. I don't know the quality of the data at all. But a fun web service when in need.

Posted by Martin at 10:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New knife

Just bought on e-bay a Buck 760 Summit Mountaineer folding knife. Designed by local seattle boy Peter Whittaker to carry up Mt. Rainier. It is light and has all you need to get to the top and back down. A handy dandy carabiener clip so it can hang on the outside of your pack. Very cool....

Posted by Martin at 10:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New community site

There are way too many "social networking" sites. I am a member of them all. None has really given me value. The two most valuable have been Spoke and Linkedin. Listening to the radio the other day on the way back from work, the founder of TimeBucks was on. It is like an e-bay for your volunteer time. I just created an account to try it out. This is not a full review of the experience yet. The idea is you set up an account and tell the system something about you and what you like or maybe what you can do. Other people in your area sign up. The idea is connect non-professional people with others who need something done. This is neighbors helping neighbors. No money changes hands. You search for someone to help fix your toilet but you won't get a professional plummer. The non-professional aspect keeps the transactions free of the dreaded IRS. If you find someone you like, you have them come fix your toilet. That person gets time bucks (15 per day regardless of hours). You need to pay that person in timebucks you earn by doing something for someone else in the community.

The big producers of timebucks now are Massage therapist. There is a shortage of real talents on the system. Just over 1000 members. Only 273 in Seattle. Seems like an interesting twist on the social network no-money thing. The guy who founded it is one of these "alternative currency" guys. Friend of barter, etc. You could call this a big non-professional barter exchange. I may try out some of the people.

Keep an ear here for more. Don't have any idea how this guy is going to make any money though.

Posted by Martin at 10:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hard drive prices seem to be flattening out...

I have been tracking hard drive prices and the cost per gig for some time. It seems that they have bottomed out a bit. Or at least flattened. Since the middle of last year they have been in the 50-60 cents per gig range. With specials and promotions. There was a new low this month with a 200gig Maxtor ATA 7000rpm drive at Frys for $99.99, making it right at 50 cents per gig. But the same drive in the larger size, 250gig was $159.99, a more healthy 62 cents per gig. So for the newest, largest, you still pay more. Looks like we are in a holding pattern for awhile. As a consumer I am waiting for the next inflection point to drive prices down. As a shareholder of Segate, I am happy prices have stablized. Ah, choices... Here is the full graph

Posted by Martin at 9:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Longhorn goes to pieces officially

Today in Longhorn goes to pieces | CNET News.com Muglia admitted that the vision of Longhorn won't be delivered till 2009 at the earliest. There will be an interium release with some portions of it as I have predicted earlier. Too bad.

Posted by Martin at 2:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The solution for my Bose speakers clicking

This is it: stereo-link: Connect your computer to your stereo with our high-fidelity USB converter! I bought the Bose Companion 3 speakers for my home PC. Love the sound! But there is interference. Some clicking and popping and a humm. I think it is the harddrive. I called Bose. They said run the speakers in a room with nothing else in it. I said that didn't sound too good for computer speakers! So I talked to a friend at microsoft today who said the problem is that you get interference by doing the Digital to Analog converison in the computer housing. I just have the speakers plugged into the headphone jack which is on the motherboard. With the Stereo-Link gadget, you get the music out digitally from the USB port and do the converison in their clean box. No more noise. I can't wait to try it! Wait for the review.

Posted by Martin at 2:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The other side of SPAM filters

These guys: MarketingSherpa.com : Practical News & Case Studies on Internet Advertising, Marketing & PR have had a surprising number of good articles lately. This one is about 5 tactics MyPoints uses to get their e-mail promotions through filters to their 10M subscribers. Very practical tactics if you are doing such campaigns. In the end, I believe that e-mail publishers will have to subscribe to various trust authorities like Cloudmark's Rating system to get through. Simple message format and content tricks won't be enough.

Posted by Martin at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ON 24 gets more money

ON24 gets new funding led by USVP. Wow, still funding streaming media companies. That is a surprise. These guys claim to be profitable. But they raised $40M. Wow.

Posted by Martin at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Want to back into a value for Google?

This WSJ article lays it all out. Backing into a value from the way Google values it's options.

• Valuing Google By Reading Between The Lines
By Scott Thurm of The Wall Street Journal 5/13/2004

By Scott Thurm

Investors are puzzling over how to value Internet-search innovator Google Inc. for its planned stock offering.

Some clues, from Google itself: Think either $80 or $91 a share, which would value the company at $20 billion to $22 billion, before the initial public offering of stock.

Those numbers don't appear in Google's IPO securities-registration statement. But accounting sleuths say other disclosures in that document allow them to estimate how Google values its own shares.

Those disclosures relate to the stock options that Google granted to employees. Many of those options were granted at share prices that now seem ridiculously low -- an average of $2.65 a share for last year, for example. So, applying a common practice for companies going public, Google has reassessed the value of those options and recorded the difference as a compensation expense.

By digging into those numbers, Jack Ciesielski, publisher of Analyst's Accounting Observer, says he can estimate how Google itself valued its shares as recently as the first quarter of this year.

One way to unravel the numbers, Mr. Ciesielski says, is to track how much deferred compensation Google records for the "excess" value of the options -- that is, the value above the exercise price.

Mr. Ciesielski says Google added $75.4 million to its deferred-compensation account during the first quarter. Dividing that by the slightly more than one million options Google issued during the first quarter, he estimates that Google figured the excess value of the options at $75. Those options carry an average exercise price of $16.28. Adding the two figures together, Mr. Ciesielski estimates, Google valued its shares at roughly $91.

Mr. Ciesielski has a second method for determining how Google valued its shares that yields a different result. It relies on the Black-Scholes formula that companies use to value the options they grant to employees.

Google discloses this "fair value" for various time periods in its filing, as well as the financial assumptions it used to arrive at the value. Mr. Ciesielski realized he could run the Black-Scholes formula "backwards" to estimate the per-share value that Google must have put into the formula.

Here is how it works: Google says that, based on the Black-Scholes formula, the fair value of the options it issued in the first quarter was $67.06. Using that figure, the $16.28 exercise price and Google's other financial assumptions, Mr. Ciesielski says Google valued its shares at $80.44.

David Larcker, an accounting professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of business, ran the Black-Scholes numbers independently and arrived at essentially the same result -- an estimate of $80 a share. Mr. Larcker labels Mr. Ciesielski's approach as "clever." Even though Google doesn't provide an estimated value for its shares directly, Mr. Larcker says, "the stock price shows up in various calculations."

Mr. Cieselski says he can't explain why the two methods yield different results.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment, citing the "quiet-period " restrictions around the IPO.

But in its filing Google says it relied on advice from its investment bankers, its own historical and forecast results, and comparisons to public companies to value its shares. It warns investors that the values are "inherently highly uncertain and subjective."

Mr. Larcker says it will be interesting to see if investors use the numbers derived from Google's filing in bidding for shares during the auction that Google says will help set the price for the IPO. "You would think that the numbers that are out there would be pretty close to what you'll see" at the time of the IPO, he says.

According to its filing, Google has roughly 246 million shares outstanding, meaning that the per-share estimates value the company at $19.7 billion to $22.4 billion. The IPO itself will add to that value, by issuing more shares. Google hasn't yet indicated how many shares it will issue, but companies typically add roughly 10% to their shares during an IPO. That would boost Google's total value to $21.7 billion to $24.6 billion, in the range that analysts and investment bankers have estimated.

In reassessing the value of its options, Google is following established Securities Exchange Commission procedures. Richard Rowe, a former director of the SEC's corporate-finance division, says the agency has been requiring IPO registrants to reassess the value of historical stock options since at least the 1980s.

Mr. Rowe, now a partner in the Washington, D.C., law office of Proskauer Rose LLC, says SEC staffers adopted the practice because they found many about-to-be-public companies had issued options at unrealistically low prices, essentially transferring value to employees. "If a company granted a lot of options in the last year, the staff will ask them to justify how they accounted for them and revalue them," he says, stressing that he has no specific knowledge of Google's filing.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has raised approximately $35 million to date from investors including Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Stanford University, where Google founders Page and Brin were PhD candidates, is also an investor, along with Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems; and Ram Shriram, former president of Junglee and vice president of business development at Amazon.com.

Posted by Martin at 10:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 12, 2004

Cool Camp LED

Kudos to Kevin Kelly for this:
I am going camping this weekend and want a very light flashlight.

Ultra-lightest camp light
Pak-Lite LED



The ultimate lightweight backpacking camp light. A tiny 4 gram chip sits atop a regular alkaline 9-volt battery which acts as body, handle, stand and power source. Two modes: high (75 hours) and low (600 hours). High mode produces about as much light as a candle, only steadier, harsher and whiter. The Pak-LIte is an ideal tent light. You can set down and let it burn hour after hour, night after night. I once ran mine for 48 hours continuously and found no drop off in power. One battery should last the longest thru hike. You can make it last years by substituting a 9-volt lithium battery (200 hours on hi, 1,200 on lo). It's easy enough to grab it and use it as a torch or map reader as well. Since the 9-volt battery has a long shelf life it makes a pretty good hurricane/emergency light too.


-- KK


Pak-Lite LED Flashlight
$25
http://www.x-tremegeek.com/templates/searchdetail.asp?T1=142+0386

Posted by Martin at 1:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

FTC settles two anti-spam suits for $122,500

Humm, out-law.com is reporting that the FTC has wettled cases against two spammers who allegedly used spam to trick recipients into accessing sexcually explicit materials. These messages didn't conform to the CAN-SPAM criteria. There was no sign-off ability. This looks to me like one of the first settlements. I wonder if they will actually pay or if the judgement just goes against the people and there aren't any assets to go after.

Posted by Martin at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Our next generation CRM company getting good press

ASPnews.com -- Strategies : Entellium Turns Its Attention to America. Look for this company to start eating sales away from Salesforce.com.

Posted by Martin at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Looks like Kerry is ahead in my President poll


looks like java script isn't working, so here is the raw numbers today. I will run thru May.


Who are you voting for?

George Bush 21 % (5 votes)
John Kerry 56 % (13 votes)
Ralph Nader 4 % (1 votes)
None of the Above 17 % (4 votes)
Total votes 23

Posted by Martin at 6:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 10, 2004

Trouble in liberal land

Soon after Rob Glaser invested in Air America, the Chairman and his deputy resign. Chairman and his deputy resign. Humm I wonder if the two are related. CEO left recently too. Looks like a trainwreck in the making. Funny how in the real world the lights are brighter huh boys?

Posted by Martin at 9:22 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

The recovery is in full bloom...

While the hard core Dems are blustering on about a "jobless" recovery, the facts tell a completely different story. I don't usually excerpt whole articles, but today's WSJ editorial about how deep and strong the jobs recovery is says it all. Couldn't have said it better myself. In my own business of Venture Capital I have also seen the job market tightening. Talent is getting harder to find. Way to go Bush.

WSJ, May 10, 2004; Page A16

With all the attention on Iraq, the blowout April jobs report barely made the front pages on the weekend. So allow us to mark the news as the official death of the "jobless recovery."

The allegedly "sluggish" economy has now created 867,000 new jobs since the beginning of 2004, 1.1 million since August. Jobs are coming back even in manufacturing, to the tune of 30,000 in the last two months. The civilian unemployment rate fell again to 5.6%, down from the June 2003 peak of 6.3% -- which is below the peak of 7.5% during the recession in the early 1990s, and below the 9.7% peak of the recession in the early 1980s.

These numbers are especially notable given the continuing increase in productivity. For months productivity gains were seen as a business substitute for new hiring, but not anymore. Overall business productivity climbed 4.5% in the first quarter, and by a whopping 5.9% in durable goods manufacturing.

If they follow their usual pattern, pessimists and partisans will now drop the "jobless recovery" line in favor of the "hamburger flipper" assertion. That is, they'll claim these new service" jobs aren't nearly as good as the old jobs in manufacturing that have gone to Mexico or China. Ergo, the middle-class is "vanishing."

Sorry, that's also phony spin. Economist David Malpass at Bear Stearns calculates that average hourly earnings in manufacturing in April were $15.24, or $16.08 with overtime. Average hourly earnings in all service jobs were a comparable $15.17. If you exclude the retail and leisure sectors, service jobs paid $17.25 on average. The better-paying categories -- in finance, information, professional services, education and health care -- have produced most of the new service jobs (574,000) in the past six months. To put it another way, those productivity gains are gradually making their way as pay increases into worker pocketbooks.

They are also beginning to replenish the federal Treasury. The Congressional Budget Office reported last Thursday that revenues "are running $30 billion to $40 billion higher than anticipated" this fiscal year. The bulk of the increase is coming from corporate income taxes, which are up about 45% from a year earlier, largely due to rapidly rising corporate profits. Payroll tax revenue is also up some.

What this means is that if Congress can provide even a modicum of spending restraint, the federal deficit will begin to decline again, just as it always does during a healthy economic expansion. One bit of bad budget news is that spending on Medicaid, the health-care entitlement for the poor, is growing this year by more than 12% -- or about five times the inflation rate. We'd suggest that Congress tackle that problem . . . yeah, right.

Alan Greenspan also made headlines last week with his fretting about the budget deficit as a long-term economic threat. We'd have thought the Fed Chairman would be preoccupied just now with wondering if he's had the money-supply too loose for too long. The robust recovery and recent signs of renewed inflation seem to have caught some Fed Governors by surprise. Rather than kibbitz about fiscal policy, perhaps they should focus on their real job, which is maintaining a stable price level. The economy seems to be taking care of itself.

Posted by Martin at 8:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Detailed analysis of Planet Out IPO and business

gfn.com does a very good job of putting the S-1 for Planet-Out in terms we all can understand. A very strong growth business actually. And loyal customers, without alot of competition. This will be a very good thing if WallStreet can look beyond any emotions and recognize a good business when they see it. A great thing for Mayfield as well, their major VC shareholder. This is all good news for us VCs. If you can take a risk on a fringe business for a fringe social group and come up with a return, maybe the VC business has a future..

Posted by Martin at 8:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sony's digital music site an "embarrassment"

The Washington Post's correctlyreporting that Sony's new music service is an embarrassement. No innovation. No clear useage rights. Poor user interface. Limited catalogue. OK price, but not much more. www.connect.com

Come on guys, we are still in V 1.0 of these music services. There are new ways to consume music that actually EXPAND the market. But me-to poor iTunes clones are not the way. From the company that brought us the WalkMan, I would have expected more.

Posted by Martin at 8:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 7, 2004

some articles on SPAM arrests

Computer Crimes Unit makes first arrests, Dec 11, 2003
FTC announces Second CAN-SPAM case
FTC announces First CAN-SPAM case april 29, 2004
Text of the CAN-SPAM law, Jan 1, 2004
SpamLaws.com links to all international spam laws.
12 caught for Phishing in England, May 5, 2004

Posted by Martin at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April jobs numbers best in 4 years

Reuters.com reports the 288,000 jobs number for April is best in 4 years. This should quell some of the president's critics. And remember this is the "employer reported" number which is actually very inaccurate as it is only from employers who report. These tend to be large ones. There has been significant growth in the small and home business sector. When you do a jobs number from the bottom up by doing an EMPLOYEE survey, the numbers are even better!

Posted by Martin at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gartner Zinger on impact of Phishing schemes

From the above mentioned report out this week:

Gartner believes that the double-digit expansion of U.S. e-commerce will slow down unless service providers adequately address consumer security concerns. A future Gartner note will outline emerging antiphishing solutions, ranging from digitally signed e-mail to managed antiphishing services. Without the implementation of phishing antidotes, consumer trust will further erode and annual U.S. e-commerce growth will slow to 10 percent or less by 2007 (0.6 probability).

Wow. I think that is a bit agressive, but it certainly gets your attention doesn't it? Consumer confidence erroded by Phishing scams and other problems results in a material drop in overall on-line commerce growth. Certainly a good way to scare your clients into calling you.

Posted by Martin at 9:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gartner notes increase in E-Mail Phishing

Gartner Study Finds Significant Increase in E-Mail Phishing Attacks. Cost to credit card issuers estimated at $1.2B in 2003. 57M Americans have likely received them. They are getting more sophisticated. SPam isn't just for penis enlargement anymore.

Posted by Martin at 9:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 6, 2004

Google Adsense in Archive templates

Thanks to E. Timothy Uy for the code to add Google Adsense words to my Archive pages. It wass much easier than adding to the main index page. Since the archives all have a standard header basically over on the left, if you just float a couple ads on the right, you don't have to mess with the body of the template. So this code puts two side by side google ads to the right of your header.

Go into the Category, Date and Month archive templates. Scroll down to the body. Just under the "Banner" div, add the float right style div with your google script pasted in. Sample section below. Replace the script code with what you copy from google. I put some spaces in the code just after the "<" to make MT interpret it as text, so you have to take those out if you want the code to work.


< div id="banner">
< div style="float:right;">
< script type=" text/javascript">
< !-- google_ad_client = "insert your client id here"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60; google_ad_format = "468x60_as"; google_ad_channel ="insert your channel id here"; google_color_border = "CCCCCC"; google_color_bg = "FFFFFF"; google_color_link = "4A7184"; google_color_url = "4A7184"; google_color_text = "444444"; //-->< /script> < script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
< /script>


< h1>< a href="<$MTBlogURL$>" accesskey="1">< $MTBlogName$>
< span class="description">< $MTBlogDescription$>
< /div>

Posted by Martin at 1:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Cloudmark Wins PC World!

PC World has just completed a review of spam fighting tools and gave Cloudmark the nod on accuracy and false positives. Good job guys!

Posted by Martin at 12:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Glaser continues to show his liberal colors

PaidContent.org reports that Rob Glaser, CEO of Real Networks has invested in Al Gore's liberal radio network, Air America Radio.

Long time streaming media watchers will remember the original name of Real Networks as Progressive Networks. Progressive for the "leveling" power of giving streaming media to the people. How it is going to break down the barriers to free speech and break the back of the big media companies. Rob is still dreaming. And obviously pissed that the Republicans have done a better job with his new technologies than the liberals. That is because the liberals are in control of tradidtional media! Funny.

Posted by Martin at 10:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Customized landing pages case study

These guys, MarketingSherpa.com : Practical News & Case Studies on Internet Advertising, Marketing & PR have just published an interesting marketing study on the advantages of custom landing pages. Basically you can take a generic site and customize it based on the referrer. If someone gets to you by typing in a certain search word on google, if your content management system customizes the home page for to make it look more like focused on that search term, your conversion rates are higher. Cool little trick.

The Marketing Sherpa site is full of them.

Posted by Martin at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 5, 2004

Ironport and Msft not a big deal

This announcemen today: Microsoft taps IronPort in spam fight | CNET News.com at first blush sounds like a big deal. Of course it does because the start-up Ironport wrote the press release. But dig deeper...


According to my Microsoft contacts, Microsoft has been testing Bonded Sender for “quite awhile” and just now are getting around to endorsing it. Bonded sender is basically a white list with a lot of “trusted” third parties and policies behind it. They will add the “bonded sender” rating into their decision tree at MSN and Hotmail when determining “spammieness” of a mail. It is just one more data point that Microsoft is saying they will trust. Good PR for Ironport. No money for them. No guarantee their “bonded” mail will get through (it still may fail other tests).

At first blush, this may seem to conflict with Microsoft’s Caller ID proposal. It takes alot of brain cycles to parse the difference, but essentially Caller ID is a small technology fix to prevent forged headers. Bonded Sender is an independent third party validating senders. I am sure Microsoft believes there are benefits to not being in the bonding of senders business, while Yahoo and AOL believe they want to be in that business. It is clear that Microsoft is taking the partner with third party approach for sender authentication as opposition to Yahoo/AOL approach.

In the end, good PR for Ironport. Probably no money. Don't know if they will sell any more mail pumps to send stuff to Hotmail users.

Posted by Martin at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 4, 2004

Puerto Vallarta Squeeze: Robert James Waller


More reading in Sayulita. Being in Mexico, just north of Puerto Vallarta, I had to read this one. Even though it was by Robert James Waller who, after Bridges of Madison County, I swore to never read! Amazon's review concludes with:

These characters are flatter than cardboard, their situation is extremely unconvincing and the book is singularly devoid of suspense. But these weaknesses are nothing compared to the prose, which reads like an illiterate's imitation of Hemingway. Even the faithful may want to think twice about this one.

Good thing I was in Mexico and well away from any sort of connectivity when I read this one. It was an enjoyable beach read that I finished in an afternoon. Expecting Bridges kind of sappy chick flick writing, I was happily surprised when the main character is an ex-marine who is now a free lance hit man. While I must agree with the Amazon reviewer's comment about flat characters and an unconvincing situation, the book did deliver what I wanted in that place at that time: An entertaining read set in and around where I was at the time. The descriptions of downtown, latenight Puerto Vallarta were engaging enough to get me to leave our quaint little town early on the last day to spend some time exploring PV. My friend Chris McQuarie wrote a movie script about a sniper and got me interested in the ways of snipers. The portrayal of the Clayton Price, the ex-marine sniper, as a practiced, disciplined loner was interesting to compare to the characters I had read about in Chris's script. The lone sniper being pulled out of his seclusion by a seductive Mexican maiden, Luz, was at times hard to believe and not very convincingly written. But I wasn't looking to be convinced of the ability of such a guy to love. Or of her former boyfriend to mess it up along the way.

What I was looking for was an easy beach read with guns and some local color from Puerto Vallarta. I got just that.

Posted by Martin at 8:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reversible Errors by Scott Turow

So I was in Sayulita Mexico last week. Hence the radio silence here. While there I stayed in the house of a friend right on the beach. Could surf right outside the door on a great left. Unfortunately my arms couldn't handle paddling all day, so there was quite a bit of time to read. The house was full of books people had brought and left, so most were just right for the beach. One I particularly enjoyed was Reversible Errors by Scott Turow.

Another in the lawyer murder genre which for some reason I have become enamored with. Reversible Errors though stands a bit apart in how developed the characters are. The basic story is a guy on death row gets a new (third) court appointed (high powered pro-bono) attorney to handle his latest haebus corpus to stave off execution. Of course he didn't do it. The busy, expensive lawyer of course doesn't believe him, but is earnestwhile and dedicated. Through some investigation, he finds new witnesses that attest to his client's innocence. Of course the prosecutor who put the guy in jail the first time, is now about to run for Chief Prosecutor and doesn't want to see her career making case fall apart. Where it gets interesting is when the defendant's lawyer gets traction on his long term crush on the disgraced former judge who originally sentenced his client. Meanwhile the formerly single, now married to high powered congressman, prosecutor has had an on/off affair with the married detective who was in charge of the case. The haebeus corpus and various court motions bring these characters back into each others lives after 10 years of turmoil.

In most murder/lawyer who dun-it's the primary dramatic tension is: Did he do it? Maybe if you are lucky, you may get some tension because the bad guy is still out on the loose and he may do it again. Here, the tension is different. The guy is already is jail. We know who they think did it. But there is still tension on who really did it because there are witnesses that come in late. The former head of security at an airport near the restaurant where the original murder took place is now an inmate at the same prison as the accused and is dying of cancer. He says he did it. But you don't know his motivations for saying this. There is also the love tension between defense lawyer and former judge in the case. Of course complicated by possible wrong-doings by the judge in the case. Who does the defense lawyer side with, his client (who is a scumbag anyway) or his long-term crush and now possible lover? The prosecutor also has her hands full with an illicit wild sex affair with the detective who made the original arrest and obtained the original confession. As evidence provided by the detective gets called into question, the prosecutor begins to question her ability to believe him in other areas.

Each of the multiple plot lines kept me engaged. There was enough tension to keep me reading to the last line. Without giving away the ending I will tell you that Turow doesn't succumb to the temptation many writers have of using the last chapter to tie everything up in a nice bow. Bravo!

Posted by Martin at 7:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Results of my SPAM poll

Here are the results of voting on my site over the last month or so.

STATISTICS
What is the best solution to SPAM?

Legislation 14 %
(4 votes)
Client side filters 3 %
(1 votes)
Server side filters 10 %
(3 votes)
Client/Server combo filters 28 %
(8 votes)
Change in SMTP adding authentication 35 %
(10 votes)
Other 7 %
(2 votes)
Total votes 28

Looks like most people believe it will take a change to SMTP to solve the SPAM problem. Or a combination of Client/Server filters. In any case, something has to be done!

Here is a live link to the results

Posted by Martin at 1:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Adding Google Adsense to my blog

So after seeing my server logs and realizing that people actually read my blog in some significant quantities, I decided to see if the adding Google Adsense ads to the site could generate enough to pay for my daily latte habit. Here is the blow by blow implementation....

Step 1: Get a Google AdSense account. You would think that this is trivial. It is not. I first applied about six months ago when I had very little traffic and infrequent posts. I was denied. They sent a nice mail saying "your site doesn't meet the criteria". Maybe one wrinkle is that my blog is at a subdomain off my main domain. The blog is at www.martinandalex.com/blog and Google won't let you enter that subdomain, only the top level which is www.martinandalex.com. When their bots went there and found a personal web page, instead of the insightful, engaging blog content, they probably ran for cover. When you sign up for an AdSense account, you use your e-mail address to log-on. So when I went back this time and tried to apply for an account they said I (my e-mail address) was not elligible (based on six months ago scan). Being wiley and persistent, I signed on with a different e-mail address and gave the domain again. This time their spiders came out and found the blog, all the insightful postings, and approved my application. Now I don't know if the AdSense criteria have changed in six months, or if simply over time and more traffic, my site now qualifies. It is a bit of a design error with Google that they blackball your e-mail address and only allow one domain per e-mail address. Good thing e-mail addresses are easy to come by. So I got the account, figured out what ad format I wanted for the site and copied the javascript code. Ready to paste into my Movable Type index template.

But not so fast....

Step 2. Add the AdSense code to your Blog template. Nothing could be as easy as it sounds. My Movable Type Index template was two columns with a small left sidebar and a variable content main body. I wanted the ads down the right side of the blog. This means a three column blog. So I had to break it down into substeps.

Step 2a. Make the blog a three column format. Now not being a programmer (anymore), I asked my pal John who is. He didn't know exactly how to add a right column, but pointed out the Cascading Style Sheets part of MT configuration. So I had to become a CSS programmer. MovableType does not provide any three column templates standard (bummer). Luckilly Google provided the answer at this very helpful site. There was the three column CSS code. And different variations. I chose one with a fixed left and fixed right margin with floating text in the middle. That means that as you resize the window, the text in the middle will resize and wrap as the left/right stay there. The main work was creating a "Rightlinks" and "Leftlinks" division in the style sheet. And modifying slightly the #Content (center) portion code. Here is the relevant new code which I added to styles-site.css in MT.

                  #content {
background:#FFF;
margin-right:163px;
margin-left:225px;
margin-bottom:20px;
border:1px solid #FFF;
voice-family: "\"}\"";
voice-family: inherit;
margin-left: 225px;
margin-right:163px;
}
html>body #centercontent {
margin-left: 225px;
margin-right:163px;
};
}

#leftlinks {
position: absolute;
left: 10px;
top: 85px;
border:1px solid #FFF;
width:200px;
}

#rightlinks {
position: absolute;
right: 10px;
top: 80px;
border:1px solid #FFF;
width:164px;
}

Step 2b. Change the index template to pick up the new style sheets. Basically, you have to rename your "links" division to "leftlinks" and then add a "rightlinks" division. Sounds simple, but after a couple of placements, I kept getting the adsense stuff either appended after the bottom of the "powered by" part of the left links or written directly over top of the calendar part. There was a very nice white space over on the right that was totally unoccupied. After a couple hours of futzing around, I decided to go back to an old programmer trick of counting begins and ends. It looked to me like the "rightlink" division was being treated as part of the "leftlinks" division. If that was so, there was probably a missing "< / div >" somewhere. That was in fact the case. When I fixed that, the following code slapped the google Adsense ads right over on the right like it is supposed to. (had to insert some spaces to get MT to see this as text and not try to run the code).

< div id="rightlinks">


< div class="side">
< script type="text/javascript">< /script>
< script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
< /script>
< /div>

< /div>

Step 3. Rebuild the site and start cashing the checks. Well, no checks yet, but I will keep you updated.

In all it took about five yours to implement. Too long for the average guy. And I had to become a CSS and HTML programmer. This has to be an order of magnitude easier to do.

Posted by Martin at 1:31 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

May 3, 2004

MSN beta site

MSN is trying to be more like Google every day. They have a "sandbox" site were their beta ideas go. Here is the pointer. MSN Sandbox So far nothing really interesting there. Waiting for them to officially post BlogBot.

Posted by Martin at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack