Posts Tagged ‘company’

You might remember the products. You might remember the hype. Then, you are tooling down highway 41 years later and all of a sudden you think to yourself – “Hey, whatever happened to…”

Failed ideas. Maybe it was a great idea, but wasn’t made right, or design errors brought it down. Maybe it was just a bad product. Well, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and see if we cannot repeat these errors again.

Oh yeah, why 16? Well because we could.

The Computer Watch: Whether it was the Ruputer, the MSN Direct ‘Smart’ Watches, the Timex Data Link Watch or another gadget watch – BTW – I remember having a “Transformers watch”. It was awesome!

Still, the Dick Tracey style communication watches, the “Computer on a wrist”, never really hit it off. I even remember a watch that gave you directions. You would put in the paper tape and turn a little dial to indicate where you are and where you are going.

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Day Off - Sort of
A late Ramblings this week as I decided to stay offline last week. It was a long week and I was playing all weekend. It has been a while since I last took more than 24 hours off a computer, so that is a big feat for me.

HP Tech Forum

I had a fun time talking and working with Andy McCaskey and Kara Karsten with SDRNews. We had such a blast. We also put forward the mobile interview booth rig. We call it the “MacGyver” rig. Nonetheless, it was connected to uStream and we were able to conduct a few interviews for the event. Check out all the info on the Twitter log at #HPTF.

Great to meet some new bloggers: Shane Pitman of Neowin, John Obeto of AbsoluteWindows. We had a great week along with Halley, Tom, Calvin and Rebecca from HP and Buzzcorps.

Fryes at Vegas

Also got to go to Vegas again. While we didn’t run around town as much as with CES (everything was contained in Mandalay Bay), we did venture out to go to Fryes. It’s actually my first time at Fryes and I was pretty impressed. Of course, it was Vegas, so the store has a big slot machine up in it’s store front and stacks of coins as barrier posts. The inside was very big and complete. Andy had to get a new scratch drive since the one he brought died. We got what we needed and headed back to the safe Mandalay Bay

Mandalay Bay

Wow. This is a city contained in a building. That is, if you have the money for it. My room – which I call the “Bob Newhart” room – was decked with all the amenities. TV in the bedroom and the bathroom. You can connect an external device easily and be watching a movie while soaking in the tub.

The casino area was always hoppin. There were bands both on the “Sushi Pop” and “House of Blues” stages. Restaurants all over the building. A small walk and you are at “theHotel”. They even have their own beach – where we watched the Beach Boys play a set. Well, it was a short set for me, since I had a flight to catch.

Podcast on the show floor

I had the unique opportunity to record the show from the HPTF Expo floor. It was great because I didn’t have to set up a rig, do a show, rip it down and go to another area to post. I would also like to thank Simon Calder for helping out with the show notes so I could focus on other things.

What I got out of the show

Of course, there were a lot of things I have learned from this event. I have run server rooms before, but I was a little out of touch with the current technologies. FCoE was the big one I learned about. Also building a server is a lot different than before. Greener, more powerful and reliability were the best parts.

The Keynotes were just amazing. Learning about how these big companies are working on green technologies is amazing. Dr. Michio Kaku and his views for the future were amazing. A “Smart toilet” is definitely something to get excited about.

The Weekend

I got back to Madison at 8 AM on Friday. It was a long trip (5 hours, turned into 7 due to timezone changes). What was worse was on the trip back, I was not really impressed with the airline I flew. The one thing I noticed is they were not really friendly.

An example: We flew through a couple storm fronts during the trip. Most airlines would say “This is the Captain. We are seeing some turbulance, so please remain in your seats and buckle your belts. Thank you.”

The airline I was on? Well: “Please buckle your seatbelts”.

The airline also had screens drop from above. While I would normally invite this, I was in a evening flight. I had difficulties sleeping when something like a video monitor is playing. Of course, I didn’t pack my sleeping mask. Therefore, I was stuck watching “Confessions of a Shopoholic”. While other people loved this movie, I didn’t find it as interesting.

I got home around 9 AM, in which I proceeded to collapse on the bed for a couple hours. Woke up, caught up on some work I missed during the week, then headed off to play a show. Since it was out of town, I had to pack for another night away from home.

Band Gigs

Saturday was a day of playing. We played a friends graduation, then it was up to the Dells for our regular show at the Baja bar. There were 4 different Bachelorette parties that night and they were not in the Baja at the same time. As one party left, the next one showed up. Crazy.

New Guitar

While we were in transit to the Graduation party, we stopped at a local music store. There, I found a used Acoustic / Electric guitar. I picked it up as a spare for future shows. It needs some work to it, but not much to make it ready to play out.

Lazy Sunday? Not.

Of course, the day started out with this post. A quick breakfast, then it’s getting things ready for the week. Have to work on “Week in Tech History”, then I have to figure out how to put together the new video studio. Lots of soundproofing to do.

I suppose I should get to it. Thanks again to everyone for a great week. How do you top that?

Charter has announced that it will be filing for bankruptcy by April 1. Story here.

It caught my eye because they are the cable provider where I grew up. There’s precious little detail, other than a quote of an optimistic statement from the company saying that it was certain it would survive reorganization after restructuring.

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You’ve been working at your job for years. You’ve made lots of money for the company and are the most loyal employee they know of. Yet, tough times are ahead and the company decides you are one of the 10% they have to let go to stay afloat. It’s a frustrating thing to have happen, but what are you gonna do?

Now let’s flip that: You are at your job and survive the cut, but now you are in the position to take up a part of that person who was laid off.

As companies like Intel and Google are looking at trimming the fat, it makes the average consumer wonder – what will our customer experience be without 10% of the workforce?

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If you like this article, please DIGG it. Thanks!

In Part 1, we looked at last years predictions. The numbers weren’t too shabby. This year, we’ve expanded the list to anyone that wanted to contribute. And Contributions I did get. 250 of them.

I spent most of Friday night and subsequent morning filtering the list to a couple pages worth of information. We have CEO’s, CTO’s, Marketers, Podcasters and even a Psychic helping us with this years list.

Of course at the end of the list I will be adding my 2 cents worth for 2009 on Page 2.  So without any further ado, let’s get started.

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It’s been a year and a few months since the first iPhone was sold. Since the release of the 3G model, I’ve been seeing people with iPhones I would have never expected have one. The iPhone has brought up a new way to use the internet, the phone and a computer.

Apple is under a lot of scrutiny: AT&T being the sole carrier, the Apps store program take downs and the 3G services being poor. Yet the iPhone still is the 2nd best selling phone behind the Motorola RAZR. Apple itself is set to continue through these tough times.

There has been a lot of good and bad said about the iPhone. I have seen a lot of Forum posts, even more twitters and more. I decided to go ahead and ask a small group of people over at Help A Reporter what their thoughts were. I asked to send me 1-2 paragraphs as to why you like, don’t like or are neutral about the iPhone. Here are the responses:

This week we have a lot of great history, including the event on Oct. 28th, 1955. William Gates III came into this world. Of course we all know him as the funny man in those Seinfeld commercials. However, he ran a little ole company we like to call “Micro.. Micro..” Wait. What is that called again?

Interestingly enough 30 years later (1985), Bill Gates put Microsoft up for IPO. Other cool history notes – the DMCA is signed, the first Ball Point Pen becomes available and OpenSocial.

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*All comments will be in a drawing for an iTunes Gift card and pair of LongJump Socks. Contest ends 10-31-08…*

Pankaj Malviya is the Founder and CEO of LongJump, a PaaS (Platform as a Service) company that specifically works in Cloud Computing. I sat down with Pankaj and talked about being a tech, the job role split between techie and business Entrepreneur, and how Cloud Computing can help a person or business.

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It was Ocober 6th 1997 that CEO Gil Amelio was asked to leave. Many people wanted Steve Jobs to come back, however it was a concern that it wouldn’t be the right move at this time. Michael Dell went on record saying that Apple should shut it’s operation down.

Today, even with the stock issue last week, Apple’s market cap is greater than Dell and even Google. Of course we have some great products out of the turnaround and eventual comeback of Jobs. All from a company that could have dissolved back in 1997

Hear about this and a bunch of cool stuff on Part I of This Week in Tech History.

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As a consultant, I use my own equipment all the time. When I get to a specific client, sometimes I am asked to sign a waiver that states I will not take company data. I sign it because I am not going to ruin any relationship by walking out with secrets or customer lists.

Data nowadays can be controlled. We at the Quickcast have talked about how that can happen many a time. However, the most important thing in a work environment is to make sure the data stays within the company – even after a person has left. Citrix Systems has given  Employees a bonus payment to buy their own laptop for corporate use. While it does give advantage, could the company lose control of the data?

Brought to you by CareerSaver – Download Free Certification Tests.

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The Economy is in Danger. Banks and Institutions are in a financial pickle. With the fall of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because of bad business decisions and a Blind eye to investors building more homes than Americans need, financial institutions could collapse upon themselves. To protect their money, they could make it harder for Businesses to get loans.

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