August 2007
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Blandwidth
The graphic on the left is from a Vonage test of the connection at a friend’s house near Boston. Comcast cable is her provider. The test was on her computer, which is connected directly to the cable modem. I thought that test result was exceedingly lopsided and Old Skool in respect to upstream performance, so Continue reading
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Better shooting with a cheaper, older camera
One disappointment of my Canon 30D camera is that the colors, while almost clinically accurate, are not as rich as they were on my old Nikon Coolpix 5700. The Coolpix is now a five-year-old model, with only 5 megapixels and no switchable lenses or anything. Yet it took some outstanding shots. The one above was Continue reading
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The fire(s) last time
The Santa Barbara County Fire Department has put out a Red Flag Alert: As of 2:00 pm, August 13, 2007, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, in conjunction with other fire agencies in the county, has declared a county-wide “RED FLAG ALERT”. This alert will be in effect until 9:00 pm on August 15th, 2007, Continue reading
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Quote du jour
Brian Solis on Deleting Users, Audience, and Messages from PR and Social Media: Attention PR and practicing Social Media professionals, step away from using “messages” to target “users” and “audience.” They are no longer filling the theaters, stadiums, and auditoriums to hear from marketers… … please, don’t call them “users” or your target “audience,” because Continue reading
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We do our part
The Boston Globe says Outside.in says Boston is the bloggiest place in the country. Dr. Weinberger gets quoted. Continue reading
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Let’s get small
A reader writes, I just did a search on Flickr for “Doc” and got “Would you like to try a search for photos about bashful, dopey, grumpy, happy or sleepy instead?” I failed to reproduce the effect, but still, it’s funny. Not that it matters, but I was “Sleepy” in junior high school. With good Continue reading
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Personalizing our own health care
Let’s say you have to go to the hospital, and among your problems is an inability to use your writing hand. What do you do when they hand you a clipboard and tell you to fill out your relevant health care history? That and other questions are partly answered in Health Care Relationship Management, over Continue reading
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Old look, new feel
With help from the excellent Danny Silverman, here in the Berkman geek cave, the old “Colonel Sanders” banner is now at the top of the new blog. Seems pretty good to me. What do ya’ll think? Continue reading
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Crafts in the can
That’s toilet paper origami, found via the Junkyard Sports Community. Bonus kick: Flashlight art. Continue reading
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Mashing is believing
Two casual photos I’ve taken of Baltimore have made their way into the Schmap guide for the city. Continue reading
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Quote du jour
JP Rangaswami: When you don’t focus on the user, the user gets shafted. That’s when the antecedent of you is a developer or a company that needs, by mission, to focus on users. Such may not be the case, however, for deep infrastructure developers. This is why with Linux, for example, we draw a sharp Continue reading
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Prophesies
In the VRM blog: In Web 3.0, the best wall-less gardens will win. Here’s another: Love is the ultimate lock-in. Earn and respect your customers’ love, and the rest is gravy. Including the kind you can put in the bank. Continue reading
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The heuristics of digital photography
One of the things I like best about digital photography is seeing results and learning from them immediately. In shots like the one above, for example, I could see that the time exposure actually worked, even from an airplane flying at hundreds of miles an hour. I not only see what I got right away, Continue reading
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Hot unfun in the summertime
The power went off when the storm came through yesterday afternoon (see the post below). I heard it happen first when I was driving through Baltimore, watching the storm gather, listening to WEAA/88.9 on the radio. Faint hints of lightning blinked in the sky. On one of the brighter blinks, the station’s audio went out. Continue reading
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The vapor and the desk
I’m in one of the yellow areas in the dopper radar map above. My wife and kid are in a rental car in a dark red area, driving into BWI for a flight home that I suspect may be delayed. Meanwhile power is out at my daughter’s family’s house. I’m sitting in a chair on Continue reading
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Looking toward life beyond advertising
Terry Heaton, TV consultant extraordinaire, writes: I just moved into a house, and the nice fellow from Verizon came yesterday and installed FIOS, which is the new 800-pound gorilla in this whole TV/Internet thing. Everything’s available on-demand. There’s a button you push that shrinks the screen and reveals real time weather and traffic information, provided Continue reading
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Zaca Fire visuals
Friends have been turning me on to Zaca Fire perimeter pictures. Here’s one: GeoMac is another. This too. That’s in additon to news such as this and this and this. Ray Ford at the Independent added this, with lots of maps and detailed coverage. Continue reading
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Zaca fire continues
Ray Ford has an excellent piece in the Independent on the Zaca Fire. The good news: With today’s morning fog — almost a misty drizzle — Paradise, Rosario Park and Camino Cielo residents can rest assured that the danger is over for them. The bad news: By day’s end the fire had crossed Continue reading
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There has to be a better way
In the last two weeks we’ve had three unpleasant car rental experiences, each of which is an angle on what’s been screwed up for way to long with that whole category. Read more about it at the ProjectVRM blog. Continue reading