Month: March 2007

Trillian: Mystery Product

Trillian, the multi-system messenger program I use, apparently has this really cool new product in development. However, they have taken the Joost approach to releasing things: make it exclusive.

This is making me angry, and I am considering switching back to GAIM, even though I find GAIM clunky and wheezy in it’s latest version.

Trillian developers: open it up! Teasing me only pisses me off. By the time you release your hot new product, I won’t care anymore.

I already don’t care if Joost ever gets released; it’s dead to me. Please don’t do this with Trillian.

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GrabPERF Agent: Need More Locations

My side project, GrabPERF, is looking for a few good measurement locations.

Right now, there are only five measurement locations, two of which are in my basement, on my personal Internet connection. I am hoping, through this pledge drive, to find a number of additional locations. Areas desperately needed include:

  • East Coast, USA
  • West Coast, USA
  • Midwest, USA
  • UK
  • Asia-Pac
  • Southeast Asia
  • Australia / New Zealand

Yeah, I know. I am asking for the world. Can’t hurt to try though.

Basic requirements are a Linux box with a static IP address. Additional requirements are documented here.

You can express your interest in hosting a measurement site by filling in the GrabPERF Contact Form or contacting me directly.

Thank you for your continuing support.

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Sweetgrass Farm Winery Trip — March 16-19 2007

This weekend, we went to Maine and spent a wonderful time with the Bodines at the Sweetgrass Farm Winery. Things are rolling into high gear, and there is fruit in the vats, fermenting into fine wine.

I took the time to take some pictures in their old barn, and around the property.

Blue Rungs

If you like wine and are in Maine, you should definitely look for their grand opening in May

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Print v. Web: Which comes first?

Today, I want to talk about what happens when you aggressively adopt an online strategy, but leave your print subscribers behind.

I subscribe to a great architecture and design magazine, whose name I will exclude from this discussion, with a fantastic and informative online presence. The archive and articles available to subscribers are a fantastic resource for people just beginning to explore this field.

In February, I noticed that they had updated their site with the most recent issue’s content and cover. I was somewhat miffed, as my print copy had not yet arrived in the mail. Immediate assumption: print copy lost; request re-transmission.

Today, I checked the site, and all of the content for the March 2007 issue is online. And I don’t have my copy of this issue yet.

Based on the response to the e-mail that I sent to the circulation and publishing team, I may be the first person to bring this to their attention.

When you are in the dead-tree print industry, the Web (1.0 and 2.0) are crucial extensions to your existing business model. But the aggressive use of the Web channel to deliver your content to the rest of the world before the print subscribers receive their copies is doing damage to your business.

Subscribers pay extra in order to gain access to your magazine before the rest of the world can get it. This must extend to the Web channel. As a subscriber, knowing that someone can read the contents of the magazine online before I get my chance to look at the print copy is unsatisfactory.

Subscription content infers a level of exclusivity to those who buy the gold ticket. If you give everyone the gold ticket at the same time, then a subscription loses it sense of exclusivity. Then the magazine loses guaranteed revenue. Then the magazine is gone.

Information should be free. I chafe against the subscription gateways as much as the next person. But if you base your entire business on a subscription model, you better not undermine your own subscription business by giving the subscription content away for free.

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Bye-bye Vista

I have one more call to make and then I am going to destroy my system and rebuild it using the local ghost image for the Latitude D620.

Vista has been a pain in the ass, and I am glad to see it go. It was a poorly thought through OS, and it was definitely not ready for release.

I will not be sad to see it go.

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Internet Explorer: Plan to completely support RFC 2616 anytime before the next ice age?

I am writing up a client presentation for next week, and I just realized just how flawed Internet Explorer is. Microsoft claims that the browser is standards compliant. Yet it still doesn’t support HTTP pipelining.

And the frustrating part? They won’t tell us why. I have my suspicions, which include TCP stack issues and a flawed HTTP handling mechanism that is still based on Windows 95 architecture, but an explanation from Redmond would be nice.

Every (and I mean every) other browser can do this.

Microsoft, it’s time you detached your Web browser from your OS, like you’ve forced everyone else to do.

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