25 Random Things About Technology

1. Technology is supposed to make work easier, faster and more efficient. And yet, we just fill the saved time with more work and higher expectations. What if we didn't?
2. When I was growing up in a small town in Northwest Florida, I literally read every book in the children's section by the time I was eleven years old. It was our only library in the county. Now we have the Internet with more information at our fingertips than one could ever imagine. Have we cheapened the value of information? How do we separate the high value information from the dreck?
3. In 1983, the personal computer was Time Magazine's Machine of the Year. Is it time for the mobile device to be the machine of the year? Which one is more important, now?
4. Small businesses should never be early adopters of new technology. Wait for prices to come down and for the bugs to be worked out of new technologies.
5. How many of your employees work remotely from home? Are you still worried they wouldn't really work while on company time? Maybe you should measure their productivity in terms of what they accomplish and not the time spent on task.
6. All companies need to be looking at a mobile version of their corporate web site.
7. Cloud computing is for real and small businesses should be looking into it.
8. Ditto for virtualizing servers.
9. Ditto again for software as a service.
10. Windows 7 can't be released soon enough.
11. Will coast to coast WiMax ever really happen?
12. I still toy with the idea of switching to a Mac. But, I can't stomach the prices when compared with the price of pc notebook. Take a hint, Apple.
13. Google's "intuitive" ads that pop up as I'm in my gmail account are creepy. It's more like "intrusive", than "intuitive".
14. Analytics software programs are worth their weight in gold to a company; provided you have a human being in the building who can interpret the data.
15. Never give too much power to your web master (i.e. cross train someone else to be able to update your site, have all the domains and hosting accounts registered through your company and not the web designer and most important have your web person report directly to the boss. If he or she doesn't make sense, make them put it in layman's terms until it does.)
16. Routinely audit all the technologies being used in your business. Terminate accounts of former employees. Survey which programs are core technologies in use everyday and what programs are no longer in use.
17. Routinely maintenence the computers in your office. Degrag the hard drives. Download patches and updates.
18. Who needs what? It is counter-productive and costly for employees to have too much access to company technology choices. It's also costly to have too little. Assess what programs, hardware, level of mobile device, etc. each staffer needs. Technology shouldn't be doled out by who has the biggest title. It should be determined by who has the greatest need for what.
19. Twitter is a legitimate business tool. How can your company use it?
20. Ditto for Facebook.
21. If you have a corporate blog, update it every business day.
22. How are you talking to your customers online? An e-mail link on your site is not enough.
23. Think about putting corporate videos on YouTube.
24. Referring back to #2, ideas are valuable information. Use an RSS reader and subscribe to blogs within your industry. It's a great pipeline of fresh ideas that just might inspire you. Start with this blog.
25. Form a green team on your staff and start looking at ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Chances are technology is a major culprit.

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A Universal Cell Phone Charger - Finally!

Don't get to excited. It's not expected to hit the market until January 1, 2012. But, the GSMA Mobile World Congress (This is like the UN for the mobile device industry) met in Spain recently and agreed to commit along with 17 of the major worldwide mobile operators to a standardized universal charger for mobile devices.

It's about %^&*& time!

On the one hand, this is great news; long overdue, in fact. That's the part that makes me scratch my head.

The first commercial cell phones hit the market 26 years ago... and we're still three more years away from a universal charger.

Let's put this in perspective.

In 1961, President Kennedy pledged the United States would put a man on the moon. In 1969, eight years later, it happened.

If we can go from political hot air to shagging golf balls on the moon in eight years, why does the cell phone industry need 29 years to come up with a unversal charger?

With that in mind;

- How many more years must we wait for a version of Windows that starts up within seconds and not minutes?

- How many more years must we wait for voice recognition software that is cheap and works well?

- How many more years must we wait for software companies to release their products "bug-free"?

- How many more years must we wait for pop-up screens that are written in layman's terms?

The answers, my friend, are blowing in the wind.

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IBM's CEO speaks at Council on Foreign Relations

The smart planet is coming, where every device is smart and connected to all the other ones.
Palmisano's speech here is frankly visionary in my opinion. Not good news for privacy it would seem.

The text version of his comments differ from the video posted above.

Curt's company provides project execution software.

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Book Rec: The Mobile Marketing Handbook

Sometimes its called "the fourth screen" (yes, it's a Nokia ad. But, it's actually a very good video perspective of the emerging mobile Internet).

If you think it's too futuristic for your business to jump into; think again. The future is here and there are many ways to leverage the mobile net in your marketing efforts.

Kim Dushinski's book, "The Mobile Marketing Handbook" is an excellent and comprehensive introduction into the many creative ways businesses are NOW extending their marketing across the mobile platform.

She breaks it down into several categories, including the following;

- Voice campaigns
- Text campaigns
- Creating mobile promotions and ads
- Proximity marketing (I found this one particularly fascinating)
- Building an effective mobile web site for your company

This is a book that will give you lots of ideas. If your company has not yet explored establishing a marketing prescence on the mobile web, it's not a question of if.

It's a question of when.

p.s In case you're wondering what proximity marketing is, I'll try to tackle that one later in the week. It deserves its own posting. - Renee

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Facebook Hits 175 Million Users

That's a big number and quite a milestone this week for Facebook.

How big?

Let's put it this way; 152 million people watched this year's Superbowl.

175 million people is larger than the combined populations of France and Great Britain. In fact, you can throw in the populations of Belgium and Leichtenstein, as well, and still not top the number of registered Facebook users worldwide.

Now let's look at the numbers within the numbers.

- 20 million Facebook users are accessing their pages through a mobile device.
- According to ComScore, the average user is spending 169 minutes a month on Facebook. Regular visitors to the New York Times web site spend an average of 10 minutes a month on their site. (Perhaps they should do more than write about the "25 Random Things" phenom).
- 15 million Facebook users check in on their page at least once a day.

The question is; how can your business tap into this vast audience of people (I smell customer base potential)?

- Advertising
- Put together a page showcasing your organization
- Networking
- Create an online event or company promotion complete with RSVPs available to use on Facebook. An event should offer free expertise, access to otherwise inaccessible professionals or incentives to contact the company offline.
- Put together a useful how-to video that matches your company expertise and share it (i.e. a landscape designer might put out a video explaining planting strategies with the seasons).

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New Research on Engineering Projects

30% of project managers have seen a cutback in investment as a result of the current economic climate. 11% of PMs note an increase in scrutiny of project ROI. "Layoffs usually affect non-eng[ineering] positions first,"

In other news there are ways to guarantee project ROI.

From a technology business perspective, SaaS firms seem to be weathering the storm better than large expensive enterprise software firms in this environment from the CEOs that I've been
talking to here in Austin, Texas. Now is a good time to have that monthly income rolling in.

According to THINKstrategies, one of the best is Xactly Corporation which has been named the latest winner of the new Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards program. They sell sales performance improvement software.

And who couldn't use that right now?

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Cool Tool Resource: Jaxworks

What's an spreadsheet user's favorite word? Template! There is nothing more tedious or maddening then designing your own.

Here's a great place to access an extensive library of FREE spreadsheet templates. Jaxworks has everything from quarterly cash flow analysis to shipping orders.

I have to give credit to one of my favorite blogs for tipping me off to this one: Small Business CEO.

Other things that I like about Jaxworks:

- They're established and have been around since 1996.
- They have a very strict privacy policy; no cookies, no passing on your information to third party vendors, etc.
- To be as accessible as possible, they keep the site really stripped down. Pages download really fast.
- They do sell products, a line of more sophisticated business software. But, you have to hunt for it. It's not crammed down your throat on every page.
- There are also training self-tests in various programs like Excel. You can use these for not only training, but employee assessments.
- Here's a list of other freebes they offer on the site.

There may be no such thing as a free lunch. But, it's good to know there's still plenty of free useful tools to be found all over the web. This would be one of those resources.

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Why Nintendo DSi Is A Business Story

Nintendo announced today that its new Nintendo DSi will be hitting store shelves in the United States by April 5th. That is just in time for my young daughter's birthday (and she wants one bad!). However, I'm not sure that I should be considering buying one for myself. It's not the lure of Sonic Hedgehog or Mario Brothers; it's the possibility of making it my go-to portable business tool.

I would have to consider Sony's Playstation Portable (PSP), as well.

Consider this:

With a Nintendo DSi, I can...

- access the Internet via WiFi.
- Use the camera pointed at me for on the fly web conferencing and the one pointed externally as a digital camera (this is one of the biggest upgrades to the DSi; two cameras).
- Like the DS, it has a microphone; so, I can podcast too.
- Here's a way to turn it into a dictionary.
- Hook it up with a GPS device with the added on SD Slot. I can also use that SD Slot for a USB hub. Now I am really cooking.

With a Sony PSP, I can...

- download work software like the kind offered by Tommie that includes calendar management and sharing, various work collaboration tools, even invoicing.
- use it as a Skype phone. See yesterday's posting about Nokia, by the way.
- access the Internet.
- use it as my RSS reader on the go.

You get the idea. Could it be a write off as a business expense? There's a question for your CPA!

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Nokia and Skype Hook Up

If not for sugar daddy, I mean, parent company eBay; Skype would have gone the way of the Doh Doh bird years ago.

Sure, it makes long distance bills virtually non-existent. But in this day and age, long distance bills are virtually non-existent anyway. Skype's real savings comes with overseas calls.

Enter the mobile age.

Skype, I believe, is about to find its true home and become more than the telco option of choice for in-the-know geeks.

Nokia has apparantly inked a deal to start bundling Skype software in some of it's smartphone models as soon as the third quarter of this year (just in time to gear up for the fourth quarter holiday shopping bonanza).

Yes, it's been possible before to download Skype onto your current handset. But, it's klugey (spelling?), at best; notorious for not syncing up with things like, oh, the user's address book and calendar.

This will take care of those glitches.

Keep in mind that Nokia is the biggest mobile device maker in the world (as in all of mother Earth, not just select countries).

Other reasons you might stand up and take notice:

1. eBay wins today's "crazy like a fox" award. Let's do the math. Nokia + Skype + more people starting to shop on their mobile = more bidding activity on eBay and more sales. Ka-ching!

2. Could this be the slam dunk way to set up a mobile store front for small online businesses in the not so far away future?

3. Nokia is just the first handset maker to partner up with Skype. Standby for others to follow. How will this work with Google Android and the iPhone?

For a sector of business that prides itself on "no wires", things are getting very tangled now aren't they?

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Former eBay CEO For Governor of California

Meg Whitman wants Arnold Schwarznegger's job. I normally would leave this one alone. But, there's just too many punch lines and we're going into the weekend. I've been saving this one since Monday.

I'll say this; a big,clunky messed up organization like the State of California could learn a lot from small business owners on eBay. I'm not so sure that translates into hiring its former CEO who is a big business person at her corel; a big business person who got her start running Mr. Potato Head toys back in dark ages before Al Gore invented the Internet, no less.

California has big fiscal problems. The logic goes; elect a savvy business person to come in and clean up the mess.

Let's just start with the premise....

If California worked like eBay

1. First you'd have to use the system (like pay your state taxes, participate in your kid's PTA, be a volunteer firefighter in Castroville - the artichoke capitol of the world, sit on a jury, etc.) and get a favorable rating. Then, you could actually run for office.

2. If your favorable rating falls below 85%, plan on getting impeached. No one's going to trust you below that.

3. You could try to bid down on your property taxes or cut your losses and just do the "pay now" option.

4. Speaking of payments. You could pay all fines, fees and taxes via PayPal.

5. Call your representative via Skype.

6. Expect drop shipping to some how come up during the debates.

7. Portraits of past governors, like Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown, etc. will be replaced with blown up poster size versions of Mickey Mantle's rookie card (made in China, of course).

8. Whatever the state budget is; buy.com will beat it.

9. New cabinet positions; secretary of collectibles, secretary of fake prada bags, secretary of...

10. Illegal immigration is no longer an issue. As long as you are a registered user of the state, you can be a fully participating citizen within minutes (as soon as you get that e-mail with the activation link).

Lastly, all state employees would have the potential to become millionaires on the job. However, they must be willing to work 150 hours a week and find room to store 10,000 pairs of gently worn UGGs in their own garages at home. There will be incentive bonuses for making weekly "batch runs" to the post office.

Have a great holiday weekend.

- Renee Oricchio

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The $99 iPhone Cometh - Perhaps

When RBC Capital Markets analyst, Mike Abramsky, speaks about Apple; it's considered all but gospel. So we will file this one under somewhere between rumor and not yet confirmed.

Abramsky is going on record that his Apple moles tell him a $99 iPhone will be hitting the market this summer sometime around June or July (Apple loves launching those iPhones about that time of year).

The $99 iPhone would be slightly stripped down, of course. You'd have to pay for a 3G upgrade and it would have less memory. However, it's not just a cheaper iPhone; it comes with a cheaper plan starting at $15 a month (as opposed to the $30 monthly plan now).

Of course, industry wags are having a field day speculating whether this would be a good thing or not. One school of thought goes that Apple is still selling off that backlog of two million extra iPhone units from December. A cheaper model would help build market share in what is still a very new smartphone niche here in the United States. The other side of the coin; would Apple be cannibalizing its own iPhone market? Keep in mind that they would now have to sell three $99 iPhones to match the sale of one unit sale now.

Okay, but all of that is Apple's problem. What does this mean for us business types?

Well, cheaper is always better. I think it would nudge smaller businesses to adopt iPhones for some or all of their staff, although without 3G that's a drag for road warriors. I can see some businesses having two tiers of iPhone users on the corporate account; the cheap version for the cubicle bound and the 3G upgrade for the folks in the field.

If it happens, I applaud Apple. I keep saying that especially in this economy it is time to cut those prices. Memo to Cupertino; now get serious about deep slashes on Macbook prices. And, I would NOT wait until summer. Do it now before Windows 7 comes out, while people are still angsting over Windows Vista. Once Windows 7 comes out, the window that will be giving you the most heartburn, Apple, will be the one you let close without grabbing as much of the PC market share while you had the chance.

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Life After Vista: My First Glimmer of Hope

I don't know about you. But I'm still so disgruntled with Microsoft for being put in this upgrade no-users land trying to avoid Vista at all costs that I've been in no mood to listen to all the wags touting how great Windows 7 will be when it ships; thus making Windows Vista all a bad dream.

Of all the little tidbits coming out of Redmond, this one actually perked up my spirits.

Microsoft is quietly using a "fix it" button on various help features on its site. By clicking on the "Fix It" icon, Microsoft remotely takes control of your PC and fixes the problem while sparing you, the user, from having to figure out all those steps on your own (or worse with tech support).

Here's an example of the "Fix It" option on this Microsoft page. Note the icon of the little guy in overalls with the monkey wrench in hand about half way down the page. (Microsoft has come along way since Microsoft Bob)

Apparantly, this is a dress rehearsal for Windows 7. There are indications from Microsoft that the "Fix It" feature will be built into Windows 7 to handle all those error pop ups. If that's true, let me hear an "amen" from you in the back.

Maybe the first thing the little icon man in overalls will be able to do is boot the #%@#% thing up faster. That's the top of my wish list, if you are listening in Redmond.

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Amazon's Kindle: I Don't Get It!

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the highly anticipated Kindle 2 this week in New York City. I'm not really sure why it was so highly anticipated, however. Perhaps Oprah could explain it to me.

Yes, I think it's an amazing notion to have a handheld device that can download one of now 230,000 books that are available with the click of a button, ditto for newspapers. New York Times bestselling books only cost $9.95. I assure you they cost a lot more in hardback.

That all sounds great.

I can also see the potential of the Kindle as a business tool.

Imagine being able to download trade show literature on the fly as you wander the convention room floors and then read it later on the plane ride home. No need for those obnoxious bags of wasteful over produced marketing collateral.

Imagine being able to aggregate all your research into one place (white papers, articles from Lexus-Nexus, etc.) to also read on the road.

Imagine being able to self-publish an e-book or pamphlet showcasing your expertise at virtually no cost to other Kindle owners (who now number in at three million and growing).

Imagine being able to stockpile your company news clips to use out on calls with clients. Again, no paper weight.

Then again, imagine doing all the above on either the 3G mobile device you already have or will own within a year or two.

It's just an app away.

Bottomline: The Kindle to me is a great app. But, I don't see it as a great piece of hardware.

People are looking for ways to combine their devices and not have one more gizmo to carry around in their briefcase (laptop or netbook, mobile device, iPod, etc.).

As for Kindle 2 debuting this week in New York.

Here's a rundown of the new bells and whistles:

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Facebook: Small Town America is Back

I spend way too much time on Facebook. My "friends" are a mish mosh of both friends and colleagues. At first, I was uncomfortable with the blurring of the lines between the two. Now, I'm realizing it's oddly familiar.

I grew up for many years in a small town in Northwest Florida (Shout out to Marianna!). Granted, I was a kid back then. But, I grew up in a town where personal and professional relationships went seamlessly back and forth. They had too. We were all bound by the borders of a very small community where everyone literally knew everyone.

My parent's family attorney went to our church. My dentist lived two doors down from us. My 7th grade history teacher lived across the street and frequently gave me a ride home on rainy days. My mother's office was on the court house square. So was the family business of my best friend. For a time, my mom rented office space in the same building as the local radio station owned by my other best friend's father. I bought my jeans from Daffins department store because I went to school with the owner's daughter.

I could go on and on with this.

Facebook is quickly turning into a collection of just about everyone I know (except my friend, Zelda, who refuses for fear of the daily time suck). I'm past the discomfort of mixing business and pleasure and have now moved into a new feeling of liberation.

Why shouldn't the people I work with and network with know the personal, human side of me?

I believe we've come full circle.

The benefits of small town businesses:

- Customers are fiercely loyal because the relationship is based on connection, trust and congeniality.

- The most powerful marketing tool doesn't cost a dime; word of mouth.

- People will forgive a slightly higher price or a little less selection because THEY LIKE YOU!

- Friends and colleagues are invested in the success of the same community. There's mutual support and it's proactive. Everyone wants you to succeed.

Sound familiar?

Could Facebook be the new small town?

Let's hope Wal-Mart doesn't get involved.

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The World Wide Web in a World Wide Recession

It was a dark and stormy night...

As I write this all of the anchors and pundits on FOX, MSNBC and CNN are in an atypical Friday night tizzy. The Senate is said to have reached a tentative bi-partisan agreement to pass a $780 billion stimulus bill.

Earlier today, The Labor Department announced the national unemployement rate has hit 7.6%. We lost 598,000 jobs in January alone. That figure is worse than expected and is the single worst month in job losses for the United States in 34 years.

So what are all these newly laid off people going to do with their time, along with the millions of others already sitting idle?

Can you say Internet?

- Where's the best place to cast the widest net searching for another job?
Answer: The Internet

- Where's the best place to professionally network without laying out any cash on conference fees, travel, gas money for travel or even dry cleaning for business atire?
Answer: The Internet

- When all job leads and networking opportunities are exhausted for the moment and it's two o' clock in the afternoon, what can you do until dinner time that doesn't cost a dime.
Answer: YouTube and Facebook (Lessee - 25 More Random Things About Me)

- Where can you make a few fast bucks selling off old ski equipment and your Invicta watch collection?
Answer: Craigs List and eBay

- What is the cheapest, fastest way to start a business with minimal fuss and access to a very, very large customer base?
Answer: The Internet

- Where's the best place to research your next move?
Answer: The Internet

- When you realize you absolutely have to get out of your pajamas or go on Prozac, where are you going to relocate your home office?
Answer: The nearest Panera's WiFi hotspot (free, as opposed to Starbucks).

- When you have nothing better to do than go for that professional certificate or graduate school degree, where are you going to do it with minimal hassle?
Answer: Distance learning

- Could this change the web?
Answer: Think about it; some of our most talented professionals with lots of time on their hands
spending a huge chunk of that time dinking on the Internet.

To my last point, remember; Google had only eight employees in 1999. By 2001, as the tech bubble was bursting, Google took off like a rocket. It was the year they hired Eric Schmidt as CEO, opened their Tokyo office and hit three billion pages in their search index.

Don't reach for the prozac just yet. The economy is down, but far from dead. And an unemployed worker may be unemployed, but that doesn't mean he or she isn't working - and more motivated than ever to innovate.

Hide and watch, as we say in Texas. Hide and watch.

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Of IT Budgets and Sacred Cows

I won't even say businesses are trimming the fat. That is so 2008! It's ugly out there and now it's down to trimming muscle and bone. This is dangerous business for business. Perhaps you can get away with a little muscle and bone. But, what about vital organs? The key word is vital. So, what's vital in your IT department?

Here are some tips to fight off the bean counters in your company:

1. Crunch the numbers before they do. What's the ROI on your core technologies? What technologies are streamlining the business and saving on staffing?

2. Accountants (I'm not one. But, I am the daughter of one. I know how tough they can be.) like hard numbers. Some things are vital to the business and, unfortunately, are not quantitative. How do you calculate the value of the corporate blog, for example? Put together a well-thought out brief and make sure the higher ups see it.

3. What upgrades are absolutely essential and which ones are not? Prepare your arguements accordingly.

4. You're IT. Hold your head up and remember it's 2009. The business can't do squat without you, including send out a simple invoice, answer an e-mail or archive a document for retrievel later. Remember; that budget they are cutting was pulled together off a database you maintain. Use your gravitas and fight for what is really important.

5. Pick out your own sacrificial lambs. What really can go? Some suggestions; freeze upcoming projects and all hiring, cancel trade show travel, outsource what you can, stop buying more servers and adding on to your data storage room/closet - get on the cloud!

6. It's time to get blood out of turnip. Put the squeeze on all your vendors. They don't want to lose you. They're hurting too. Renegotiate all your service contracts. Get more and pay less.

Some would say that if you do all the trimming yourself that would leave nothing but vital organs left for the accounting department when they come a'callin'. There's probably some truth to that depending on the work culture at your organization. However, it's hard to pick on a department too much that can fully explain and account for every expenditure and demonstrate it's already running a tight, responsible ship.

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Cutting Down on E-mail Tip: Disable "Reply to All"

I love this! Apparantly, companies and organizations are starting to cut down on e-mail by disabling the "reply to all" feature on their e-mail client. The Neilsen company recently sent out the following e-mail to all of its employee (irony alert: that must have required hitting "reply to all").

"REPLY TO ALL" FUNCTION TO BE DISABLED

A Message from Andrew Cawood

In December, the Nielsen Executive Council (NEC) held an Act Now! event to review suggestions from across the business that would eliminate bureaucracy and inefficiency. Beginning Thursday, January 29, we will implement one of the approved recommendations: removing the "Reply to All" functionality from Microsoft Outlook.

We have noticed that the "Reply to All" functionality results in unnecessary inbox clutter. Beginning Thursday we will eliminate this function, allowing you to reply only to the sender. Responders who want to copy all can do so by selecting the names or using a distribution list.

Eliminating the "Reply to All" function will:

'¢ Require us to copy only those who need to be involved in an e-mail conversation
'¢ Reduce non-essential messages in mailboxes, freeing up our time as well as server space

This is one of the many changes being implemented as a result of the NEC Act Now! initiative. If you have any suggestions on how we can continue to improve the way we work, please send your comments to Nielsen Communications [mailto: REDACTED].

Andrew Cawood
Chief Information Officer

My thoughts:

- "Reply to all" today, e-mail groups tomorrow?

- What do you do when you really, really need to send something out to all your staff? (For example, announcing your new "reply to all" policy?)

Just what makes that little ole ant...

I can't resist throwing this in today. There's a great article on Wired's site about what we can learn from ants about avoiding traffic gridlock. It seems Ants never have pile-ups or head-on collisions. A group of biologists, led by one Andrea Dussutour from the University of Sydney, have been studying ants for some eight years now (chew on that one for awhile; studying ants for EIGHT years!).

The article is actually very interesting and more to the point; demonstrates that inspiration for innovation is all around us if we just open ourselves to it.

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Handwritten Notes Via Computer

There are a number of ways to translate your handwriting into a personalized font. The question is why would you do it.

If you're a doctor, please stop reading now.

Here are two sites that offer customized fonts using your personal handwriting; Fontifier.com and YourFonts.com. For a nominal fee, you scan in your handwriting samples as directed. They do the rest and you then download the app with a new font that is your actual handwriting.

The upside:

- It would be handy to create a true digital signature. (Although, I doubt it will fly with the notaries)
- If you have really nice, easy to read handwriting; it would be a great way to personalize and further brand your blog or web site.

That's about it.

Downside:

- Can you say "Identity Theft"?
- Don't we type out everything nowadays to spare others from our illegible handwriting? I think the elementary schools stopped teaching penmanship about 30 years ago.

Still want to give it a try? Here's a great tutorial from Lifehacker that actually turned me onto the above sites. I highly recommend Lifehacker. I'm still not so sure about this font thing.

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Transportation Technology Makes Superbowl Boring

When my dad was a kid there were no interstates. When I was a kid, flights and long distance calls were expensive. Partly as a result of technology that is shrinking our world, the NFL has become more and more likely to trade players around and move teams wholesale, like when the Raiders went from Oakland to L.A. and back to Oakland, or when the Oilers became the Tennessee Titans.

It makes he harder for me - and I suspect others - to feel emotionally connected to an NFL team. The marketing and the hype and the ease with which players and teams relocate has eroded the soul of the NFL.

I watched that game yesterday, and I just didn't care who won.

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This Site Will Not Harm Your Computer

I say that just in case you still have the willies from any surfing you might have done Saturday morning.

File this one under "oops"

From about 9:30 a.m. EST to 10:25 a.m. EST, every site clicked on through a Google search came with a warning; "This site may harm your computer".

The good news is it wasn't true. The Internet did not suddenly become a place where every single site in the world is malware.

The weird part is that initially there was some back and forth between Google and a site called StopBadware.org. Each were pointing the finger at the other for being the responsible party. Ultimately, Google took responsibility.

The good news; at least this didn't happen during the holiday shopping season or on a business day.

My question; are these warning pop-ups so frequent, as is, that few people take them seriously anymore?

There's got to be a better way to make surfing safer.

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