Software Soapbox

Star Wars: In Concert at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on May 29

via Las Vegas News.

The production features a full symphony orchestra and choir, accompanied by specially edited footage from the films displayed on a three-story-tall, HD LED super-screen – one of the largest ever put on tour. The live music and film elements are synchronized, creating a full multimedia, one-of-kind Star Wars experience.

Playwright. It's Playwright. Looking forward to it anyway.

Tom Waits | News | New Musical From Tom Waits On The Horizon.

...for a fourth stage musical following The Black Rider, Alice in Wonderland, and Woyzeck. Contributing to this yet untitled project would also be play-write Martin McDonagh who is most known for writing and directing the 2008 Oscar nominated film “In Bruges.”

Dec Lynch and Stephan Wissel are XPAGES GOLDEN GODS!

Guys, thanks for stepping in and making suggestions during my xPages struggles. 

2 Things I did that seems to have stabilized my xPages environment:

-Uninstalled and reinstalled 8.5.1 and Fixpack 1 (Thanks Dec!) - My install has been copied over since R5 so it was probably due for a little crust removal.  Seems to have worked out nicely.  Faster and much more reliable - though not crash free....

Recreated the xPage and re-embedded all controls (Thanks Stephan!) - This seems to have fixed the worst of the weird error messages, though I still do get the usual weird error messages that everyone gets when working with xPages :).

After all this I think I'll write up a getting started xPages checklist - where to go, what to do, what not to do....

First Tip:   For large xPages with multiple custom controls, create each custom control in it's own xPage during testing and debugging, then combine them when you know they work the way you want.  Saves time in many, many ways.

Oracle's trimaran wins back America's Cup - Yahoo! News

via Yahoo! News.

The 65-year-old software tycoon was onboard his incredibly fast craft Sunday, after sitting out Race 1 due to a weight limit. His victory over rival Ernesto Bertarelli sends the oldest trophy in international sports to San Francisco's Golden Gate Yacht Club.

cnewmark: Tech Volunteers helping Haitian relief

cnewmark: Volunteers do tech to help out Haiti.

Over two hundred volunteers are getting together to build useful systems to help out, working with the Sunlight Foundation and CrisisCamp.

Could not agree more! LA Times Examines Doctor Parnassus

via Tom Waits

There’s a great review of “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” in the Los Angeles Times. I’m not sure what more you need to know other than it’s directed by Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits, Brazil) and features Tom Waits as the devil, but if doubt lingers then read the article. The writer Kenneth Turan is by no means a critical pushover so it’s substantial praise.

That said, “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” is the third most successful movie this week. But in lieu of another diatribe on the end of civilization, I merely suggest you go see this artistically ambitious and wondrous film.

I want one!

Handsfree BlackBerry Watch - inPulse by Allerta

inPulse is the perfect BlackBerry smartphone accessory - it's a watch which connects wirelessly to your phone by BlueTooth®, alerting you instantly to incoming emails, SMS and calls. inPulse extends the functionality of your BlackBerry smartphone, so when you're in a pinch you can check your inPulse instead of fumbling around with your phone.

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.