Archive for February, 2005

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Calendaring Interoperability Test Report

Published February 8, 2005 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

There seem to be few bright notes to report on the computing front these days, but here’s one:

The results from last month’s Calconnect Interoperability testing here in Seattle are now available at

http://www.calconnect.org/interop/calconnect%20v%20generic.pdf

There were two different CalDAV servers (Oracle and Isamet) and three CalDAV clients (Mozilla and two from Isamet) participating in the interop.

This marks the first time that we’ve seen actual multi-vendor client/server calendaring interoperability demonstrated – that’s a BIG DEAL!

CalConnect membership now includes Oracle, Novell, Isamet, Yahoo!, MeetingMaker, Symbian and a bunch of academic institutions including Washington, MIT, UC Berkeley, Wisconsin, and Duke. IBM and others have participated in the meetings.

You’ll note that the big missing presence here is Microsoft. We’re all still hopefull that Microsoft will choose to participate in this important interoperability work – if you know influential people there, here’s a chance to plead.

It’s Mardi Gras!

Published February 8, 2005 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez!

You should be listening to WWOZ, America’s best radio station.



image from the Penny Postcards from Louisiana site

Three cheers for Elise!

Published February 5, 2005 Technology 1 Comment

I was looking to change the content of the RSS feeds over on our Vietnam Ride blog and wondering how to do that, and of course I found the answer at Elise Bauer’s wonderful Learning Movable Type site.

If you’re using Movable Type you really need to know about this site.

Thanks, Elise!

Memory stick problems

Published February 4, 2005 Technology 1 Comment

I’ve got a Memory Stick problem.

I was downloading some photos from my Sony DSC-S75 camera into iPhoto when the camera ran out of battery and shut down.

After plugging it into the wall power, the iPhoto wouldn’t resume the download.

Looking at the camera volume on the Mac desktop I see one folder, DCIM, which has a subfolder named 100MSDCF that has all my pictures in it.

There’s also file on the camera volume named MEMSTICK.IND which has a lock icon next to it. I suspect the lock on this file is my problem.

I copied the photos off the volume and imported them into iPhoto just fine, then erased them from the camera volume. Then I shot a new photo on the camera, but when I attach it to the Mac, iPhoto won’t even recognize there’s a camera there.

When I use Command-I on the MEMSTICK.IND file it shows that it’s locked, but when I uncheck the “Locked” checkbox, it just gets reset again a minute later.

Am I going to just have to give up on this particular memory stick? Seems like ungraceful error handling, to say the least.

iPods at Microsoft

Published February 4, 2005 Gadgets & Gear Leave a Comment

Am I the only person left without an iPod?

Wired News has a piece on the proliferation of iPods on the Microsoft campus.

“About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod,” said one source, a high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s pretty staggering.”

The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player — that translates to 16,000 iPod users among the 25,000 who work at or near Microsoft’s corporate campus. “This irks the management team no end,” said the source.

So popular is the iPod, executives are increasingly sending out memos frowning on its use.

That’s a sure way to compete.

Steve Jobs talks in Business Week

Published February 2, 2005 Technology Leave a Comment

Doc points out this good interview with Steve Jobs in Business Week.

Apple had a monopoly on the graphical user interface for almost 10 years. That’s a long time. And how are monopolies lost? Think about it. Some very good product people invent some very good products, and the company achieves a monopoly.

But after that, the product people aren’t the ones that drive the company forward anymore. It’s the marketing guys or the ones who expand the business into Latin America or whatever. Because what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself?

So a different group of people start to move up. And who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy. John Akers at IBM (IBM ) is the consummate example. Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason. But by then the best product people have left, or they’re no longer listened to. And so the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn’t.

Sometimes shopping online isn’t all it should be

Published February 2, 2005 Other Leave a Comment

Over the holidays I fell in love with a seasonal tea blend from Tazo called Joy, a blend of black, green, and oolong teas that tastes heavenly with a bit of honey and milk. Now that I’ve used up all the boxes of it that I bought up, I wrote to Tazo and told them that they should make it available all year round.

Jen, the “Shaman’s Apprentice” at Tazo, wrote back saying:

We do produce another blend of black, green and oolong teas called

Montage that you can find as a full leaf tea year round. While the

blend is different than Joy, it might be something you could enjoy

during the “off-season”.

Jen gave me three different sites where I could order Montage. The first site I visited had Montage for $7.25 but had a $15 minimum on orders. The second site would only sell me two packs at once, for $15.98, and they wanted $7.95 for US Postal shipping in 5-10 days. The third site would sell me one package, for $8.75, and only wanted $4.00 for Fedex Ground shipping, but their order page didn’t even encrypt the credit card number!

I guess I’ll try to find a local retailer here in Seattle that stocks Montage….sheesh.

Hokey Spokes!

Published February 1, 2005 Gadgets & Gear 1 Comment

I saw somebody ride by the other night as I left work with bright blue lights in her bike spokes, and I had to stop her and ask her what they were – “Hokey Spokes!” she said.

These LED equipped bike lights go in your spokes and form patterns or messages as you ride. These are way toooo cool….I gotta get some!



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