Software Soapbox

Black Friday Shoppers - avoid lines and shop smarter at Black Friday Ads at Black-Friday.net

These guys are doing some great work categorizing Black Friday ads for us, and pointing out which items are available online, or even now, as early black Friday sales start up this week. 

This brings us one step closer to my own personal online newspaper nirvana I spoke of back in 2006....I already get all of my news online, I really only need newspapers when I'm looking to buy stuff, through the incredibly inefficient (but still not replaced with anything better) medium of advertising. 

Now if we could get this info EVERY week....That's a killer app.

Black Friday 2009 Thanksgiving Day Black Friday Ads at Black-Friday.net.

The Nine Essential Truths of Entrepreneurial Success

THENETWORKGARDEN.COM.

Having been around the block a few times, I put together this primer of nine key lessons learned from doing eight startups (four as co-founder, four liquidity events – exits to IBM, Apple, Wind River, Zoom):

Looking forward to Pirate Radio!

When I lived in London in the 80's I used to enjoy listening to and reading headlines about the high-seas adventures of Caroline, Monique and Laser....
Here's the historical perspective:

Once again, Caroline had a Dutch operation. From December 1984 the Ross Revenge broadcast the taped and live programmes of a Dutch music radio production company by day under the name Radio Monique using the 50 kW transmitter. These programmes featured mainly Pop and Euro-Pop style music, aimed at the mainstream Dutch radio listening audience, which gave Radio Monique wide appeal throughout the Benelux.

In addition, Caroline transmitted paid-for programmes of various Dutch and American religious evangelist broadcasters such as Johan Maasbach and Roy Masters. These were broadcast on medium wave (and later on short-wave as well) under the name "Viewpoint 963/819" (or "World Mission Radio (WMR)" in the case of the SW service).

In November 1985, the competitor offshore station, Laser, dragged its anchor in a storm. Laser broadcast a Mayday (distress signal) call, which the DTI answered and escorted the Communicator into harbour, where they impounded the ship. With Laser off the air, Caroline moved from 576 kHz to Laser's 558 kHz frequency, now broadcasting a Top 40 music format somewhat similar to Laser's (albeit with a higher proportion of oldies) under the name Caroline 558. Thus when Laser briefly returned as Laser Hot Hits, it was in turn forced to use Caroline's former (and somewhat inferior) frequency of 576.

Leonard Cohen plays Las Vegas this week!

Who would have imagined I could ever type that title.  Every inch of my food drugged tree of blood will be enjoying Thursday night!

LEONARD COHEN [ TOUR ].

Nov 12, 2009 8:00pm Las Vegas, Nevada The Colosseum at Caesars Palace

2 New products from BenzTech - The Rationalizer and SharePoint4Notes

I'm happy to announce 2 new products from BenzTech, just in time for the SharePoint conference here in Vegas!

The Rationalizer

Use time to discover what's really important in your Notes and Domino applications and Design

SharePoint4Notes
Integrate Lotus Notes and Domino, SharePoint and InfoPath using LotusScript

"Cirque" founder hosts space show for Earth's water - 8PM EDT Tonight

"Cirque" founder hosts space show for Earth's water - Yahoo! News.

The event at 8 p.m. EDT on Friday (midnight GMT) will be broadcast on satellite TV in the United States, Canada and Latin America and also can be seen on the Internet at www.onedrop.org.

Domino Designer 8.5.1 will be free!

This is Definitely the way to go, now that  Google Wave is cresting in the distance, Sharepoint Designer is free and most Office Enterprise users already have InfoPath on their desktops.  Hey, this even beats Microsoft's Visual Studio offer of Free Express versions and 3 Month trial of Pro versions! 

Free is good, but I hope this is not the only initiative.  Personally, I know a lot of very skilled and qualified but out-of-work Domino developers who would agree that what needed is more new or reinvigorated customers and Domino development projects, not more qualified developers.

Ed Brill.

The biggest part of the news is that as of Notes/Domino 8.5.1 eGA -- coming in just a few days -- Lotus Domino Designer will now be available at no charge. That's right! Free!

BankTracker

BankTracker methodology | BankTracker | Investigative Reporting Workshop.

Using these variables, we calculated a “troubled asset ratio,” which compares the sum of troubled assets with the sum of Tier 1 Capital plus Loan Loss Reserves. Generally speaking, higher values in this ratio indicate that a bank is under more stress caused by loans that are not paying as scheduled.

My interview on IBM Developerworks is live!

Catch it here...........

Leonard Cohen to Tour U.S. for Second Time in 2009

Yes!  I'll be there! 

via popwreckoning.

Nov 12 – Colosseum at Caesars Palace / Las Vegas