Software Soapbox

Great tool for GMail HTML Signatures - Blank Canvas

By default, Gmail does not support HTML signatures - Blank Canvas - Gmail Signatures. is a great tool - I put together this signature for Gmail:

Brian Benz
Email brianbenz@brianbenz.com
Office +1702.953.0613
Mobile +1702.306.7529
Skype brianabenz
My personal Web site My Blog - Software Soapbox LinkedIn Recommend me! FaceBook FriendFeed Twitter

Features:


# Works for Compose Mail, Reply, and Forward
# Support for single or multiple email addresses
# Create a different signature for each email address you use in your Gmail account
# Supports up to four signatures per address
# Real-time signature preview while editing signature HTML
# Signature automatically inserted into message above (or optionally below) quoted text
# Support for special characters
# Easy setup and configuration interface

Aggregating social Networks - a quick DIY solution using FireFox

So over the last few days I've either reactivated or started several new social network accounts, to look for a new job and also to keep in touch with the great people I've been working with at IBM.  It was fun setting them up and inviting friends and colleagues, but now as I go forward, I have a new, and I assume, common issue - How do I keep track of all the activity on My Blog - Software Soapbox, LinkedIn,  FaceBook, FriendFeed, and  Twitter. I need an aggregator!

I've had a look at Bebo, PeopleBrowsr, Power.com, and flock, but they didn't really do what I need.
Flock comes closest....but I need to be able to track - and -this is appears to be the hard part - respond to - activity without switching between services and browser windows and checking 5-10 pages to see what's going on.  Anyone have any other suggestions?

For now I have a DIY social network portal - which is basically Firefox with 10 Tabs open in the same window.  Woks for me until I find something better......To keep the tabs when I have to close firefox, I chose the "Show my windows and tabs from last time" in the "when Firefox Starts" option, on the main page, like this:

Where I'll be this week

In the evenings, crashing a few parties....

Link: Blog World Expo.

BlogWorld will feature the largest blogging conference in the world including more than 50 seminars, panel discussions and keynotes from iconic personalities on the leading-edge of online technology and internet-savvy business.

BEA rejects $6.7 billion Oracle offer

via Yahoo

Oracle's offer for BEA represents what would be its biggest acquisition since it bought Siebel Systems for about $6 billion in January 2006. Earlier this year, Oracle bought Hyperion Solutions for more than $3 billion.

Tim Bray on Web Frameworks

via ongoing

In recent years things like PHP and Rails have taught us that development speed is more important than we thought it was. On top of the obvious business value of delivering functions faster, there’s the Agile/XP view that you really don’t understand a feature till you’ve built it, so the faster you can build them the faster you understand them.

For YouTube Embedded on TypePad, looks like 10 is the limit.....

Sorry to those of you who couldn't find the links to my videos here...They were showing up blank today and I couldn't figure out why.  Then I changed a couple of embedded objects to plain ol' links, and the others showed up....I'm guessing, but it looks like either YouTube or TypePad have a limit of how many objects can be embedded on a single page, and if you're over the limit you get whitespace........

NOTE TO YOUTUBE:  I suggest you include a plain old HTML link in the markup that you package for the embedded flash object.  That way, if there is something wrong with the object rendering from the YouTube site, users can still get to the video on YouTube via the link.  Right now, they just see a big chunk of whitespace and leave.  The link could say something like "View this video at the Youtube site".

Can anyone tell me....

...why the Youtube objects are misaligned like that?

Figured it out...Here's the code that YouTube packages for embedded objects:

<p><object width="425" height="350"><param value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KNFzUOfSI1Q" name="movie" /><embed width="600" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KNFzUOfSI1Q"></embed></object></p>

The problem is in the embed tag:
embed width="600"

It should look like this:
<p><object width="425" height="350"><param value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KNFzUOfSI1Q" name="movie" /><embed width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KNFzUOfSI1Q"></embed></object></p>

Can anyone think of a good reason why Youtube doesn't match the object tag with the embed tag?  Is some kind of user IQ test?  I didn't have time to look into it until today, so my YouTube objects looked weird for a while....

Web Bottom-Feeders: This week, it's Peter de Haas and me!

I read with much dismay the troubles Peter de Haas is going through with his Web Site issues.  Apparently someone not only snagged a Web address that he had let lapse, but was also impersonating him at the new address.

I had a similar experience today, though not so bad.  Someone is trying to sell me MundoBenzo.com, an address that I let go earlier this year. 

I let it go because I was getting weird referrers.....I didn't know that Benzo is the slang term for Benzodiazepine, an addictive sleeping pill and painkiller, and apparently popular street drug.  So I was geting lots of hits, from people looking for lots of hits, if you know what I mean.....This led to me having to play whack-a-mole with lots of weird comments on my posts about software and travel and living in Las Vegas......

Now some bottom feeder has bought the Web site and is trying to sell it back to me.  What they don't know is that I was happy to get rid of it......

Thanks but no thanks!  And have fun with the address!

Google to buy video site YouTube for $1.65 billion - Yahoo! News

Experts say this is not a good deal.  Experts also said that a fair value of Google's stock at IPO was $75-90 Us Dollars.  Today it closed a $429, up $8.50.

Link: Google to buy video site YouTube for $1.65 billion - Yahoo! News.

The deal, the first to value one of the new crop of user-participation Web sites at more than $1 billion, combines two of the most popular Internet brands: Google, synonymous with Web search and rapid innovation, and YouTube, a Silicon Valley upstart that has spearheaded the video-sharing craze.

Newspapers: Yeah, what doc said!

I've spoken in the past about what I think newspapers should do with their ads  to be relevant on the Web......Now Doc has laid out, in great detail, what they should do with the rest of their valuables before they lose them......And in a list, no less! ;)

Link: The Doc Searls Weblog : Thursday, October 5, 2006.

.....newspapers are a rusty industry. They have tail fins. They print lists of readers every day on the obituary page. Worse, as a class they are resolutely clueless about how to adapt to a world that is increasingly networked and self-informing. And Wall Street knows that.