Project OrielEmbracing Change

It is iDay! (AT&T’s codename for the day, not mine)

* I promise, only 2 links on “iPhone”. The first, http://www.apple.com/retail/iphone/ tells you the availability of the iPhone in any Apple store. Check first before standing in line! The other is a longer article about Apple marketing, but I found it interesting that it mentioned Salesforce.com is making it’s CRM iPhone-compatible “Despite doubts about the iPhone’s usefulness to serious businesspeople, Salesforce.com is working on an iPhone version of its sales management software.” http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/tc20070627_285624.htm

* St. Paul Saints. http://saintsbaseball.com/

* Sarah and I participate in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) http://www.kindredspiritfarm.com/ CSA farms provide a weekly delivery of organically grown produce to members during the growing season (approximately June to October). So far it has been mostly salad greens, but will be a wider selection of veggies as they come in season.

* On Salesforce.com again – They formed Strategic Global Alliance with Google: http://tinyurl.com/35rzg5 (how great would it be to have Google as a partner?)

* Wikipedia runs on 20 servers with the open-source database, MySQL. They serve more than 154 million annual visitors to the web site, has nearly half a million updates each day, and about 25,000 SQL queries/second. To compare (as I like to do), our Pivotal installation has about 400 users and runs in a distributed environment with about 40 servers. http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/06/mysql_the_twelv.html

* Quote: “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” — Edmund Burke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

The “big” link for this week may be entirely self serving, but I hope you will find it has some use too. All of the links I’ve been sending out in these emails are now available online – they are sorted, cataloged, and even a handy archive is available showing all of the links back to the very first email in November of 2006. Check it out at http://projectoriel.blogspot.com.

Beyond that web site, there were many interesting things to link to this week. I am, however, going to defer them to another week and focus on one specific topic (a “special”, one might say!) on Podcasts.

Podcasts first became popular in 2004. They are radio & tv shows delivered automatically to your computer over the internet for playback on your iPod, mp3 player or TV. Think of it as TIVO for radio, or TIVO for shows only available on the internet. If you haven’t looked into these before I highly recommend it! You can find a good catalog of Podcasts in the iTunes Store (don’t be fooled by the name though – Podcasts are free!), or there are a number of web sites out there that catalog them.

Below are selection of the many that Sarah and I follow. The first link will take you to their web site, the second will take you to their page in iTunes to let you subscribe.

Video

ABC World News
Daily World News
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Podcasting/
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=115624496

Ask A Ninja
A ninja answers questions the viewers have.
http://askaninja.com/
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/subscribePodcast?id=115933673

green.tv – climate change
A channel for environmental films brought together from a range of environmental organizations and independent filmmakers.
http://www.green.tv
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=136471325

The Merlin Show
Merlin interviews various people: from independent musicians to Google employees
http://www.themerlinshow.com/
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=217111155

ReFrederator
Classic cartoons daily
http://refrederator.com/
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=146195172&s=143441

Sotheby’s Private View
All about great works of art for sale
http://www.sothebys.com/video/privateview/
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=204200462&s=143441&i=11758094

Tiki Bar TV
Learn how to make a new drink with each episode
http://www.tikibartv.com/
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73330667

Audio

Agile Toolkit Podcast
Conversations about the Agile Method
http://agiletoolkit.libsyn.com/
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=78532866

Cast On
A knitting podcast about yarn & life.
http://www.cast-on.com/
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=90253586

NPR: Environment
Environmental science and reporting on issues from All Things Considered and other award-winning NPR programs
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=4985907
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&id=91643729

On The Media
“On the Media explores how the media ‘sausage’ is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of ‘making media,’ especially news media, because it’s through that lens that we literally see the world and the world sees us.”
http://www.onthemedia.org
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73330715

This American Life
“There’s a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It’s mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always. There’s lots more to the show, but, like we said, it’s sort of hard to describe.”
http://www.thislife.org/
http://www.itunes.com/podcast?id=201671138

this WEEK in TECH
“five or six of us [from TechTV] gathered together in person or via Skype to shoot the breeze about the week’s tech news.”
http://www.twit.tv/TWiT
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?id=146041210

Welcome to another Friday! Links for this week (and a few extra for last week):

* Did you know there are other web browsers beyond Internet Explorer (IE)? Apple made a bold move this week by entering the Microsoft Windows browser market with their product, Safari. http://www.apple.com/safari/ If you like iTunes, you might like Apple’s browser too. The new browser has received strong interest with over 1 million downloads in the first 48 hours of it’s availability: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/14safari.html If Apple isn’t your thing, Firefox is one of the most popular alternatives to IE with about 1 out of every 4 users using it. http://www.getfirefox.com IE has slowly been loosing market share and is now down to 66% as recorded by the W3 Counter, http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?date=2007-06-10

* For the gamers in the group: an online, multi-player chess using AJAX: http://www.linuxuser.at/chess/ If other board games/card games are your thing, there are many more online multi-player games at http://games.yahoo.com

* Since a number of you have asked if I’ve gotten Apple’s iPhone yet, the answer continues to be “not yet”. This is not because of a lack of interest, but because it is not yet available! (will be on June 29th @ 6pm). If you haven’t heard what is so amazing about the iPhone, check out the videos at http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/ You can pick yours up at one of the 4 local Apple stores http://www.apple.com/retail/storelist/, at a Cingular store http://tinyurl.com/28lt4z, or AT&T store http://www.wireless.att.com/find-a-store

* My favorite weather site is direct from the National Weather Service: http://tinyurl.com/2rt3ky

* One of the websites I read regularly is Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/ They say “Computers make us more productive. Yeah, right. Lifehacker recommends the software downloads and web sites that actually save time. Don’t live to geek; geek to live.”

* For the true geek at heart, check out what programming languages are gaining popularity and which ones are loosing via the Tiobe Index at: http://www.tiobe.com/index.htm?tiobe_index

* Quote: “And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as the leader in the introduction of changes. For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.” -Niccolò Machiavelli, “The Prince”

Have a great weekend!

Things I found interesting this week:

* get movie show times, real-estate listings, gas prices overlaid on a map with Google Mapplets: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/where_20_google_3.html

* sopaipillas recipe: http://mattbites.typepad.com/mattbites/2007/05/there_are_just_.html

* This is by far the coolest thing this week: Google Street View. Click and drag in the picture and you can turn around entirely. Arrows will take you down the street. http://tinyurl.com/2ce7wv It isn’t in MN yet, but I’m sure it will be soon.

* A quick before and after article on improving the design of a single form: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/383

* Have some odd jobs that need to get done, but don’t have the time? Find someone to bid on the job at http://www.domystuff.com/

* Using Google’s Calendar? You can get your schedule via text message on your phone: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=37228

* An easy way to keep track of borrowing/lending between friends (wish I had had this in college!) https://www.billmonk.com/ SMS/cellphone enabled and all.