Let's Ride - Fred Faulkner's Blog About the Road Called Life

Cameron Moll tells us what he was doing 7 years ago.  Here’s what I was up to 7 years ago.  The year was 1999:

1. Entering my junior year at Bradley.
2. Building Web sites in tables with a hacked version of Dreamweaver not knowing at all what CSS was.
3. Dating my now wife.
4. Trying to figure out how to beat my roommate in Quake and Unreal Tournament.
5. Taking advantage of the Napster revolution (I’ve stopped since then).
6. Driving my first car, a 1988 Pontiac Grand Prix
7. Starting to wonder what I was going to do with my soon to be Marketing degree.

To give an update, here are 7 things I’m doing today:

1. Still unpacking from moving into my new house.
2. Building Web sites with CSS and Web Standards
3. Commuting 3 hours a day to and from work.
4. Driving my second car, a 1999 Chevy Monte Carlo z34
5. Married to my then girlfriend
6. Still learning a ton about the Web, business, marketing, and how they all work together.
7. Webmaster for the largest volunteer professional organization in the world.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How does an ultra-portable PC get the code name of Origami? Regardless, this does look interesting. Of course cost will be everything (and security if it is from Microsoft).

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had an article published on LLRX.com (Law Librarian Resource Exchange) on Sunday. The article, Are You Ready for Local Search?, while directed to law firms, really is applicable to any company, gives insight as to the next generation of search behavior--local search. If you have a company that relies on local business, it is in your best interest to have some sort of Website that provides information about what you do, where you are located, and how people can contact you. It's not long and worth a read.

LLRX.com Featured Article:
Are You Ready for Local Search?

In other news, I'll be contributing a regular column to LLRX on a monthly basis starting in January. I still need a column name, so suggestions are welcome. Topics to be covered will be Web, RSS, Blogs, Web technologies, and how it all works into your business and marketing strategies.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone? Beuller?

Carson Workshops is putting on yet another great conference on the Future of Web Apps. Featured speakers include all the guys who created those cool Web products we use everyday including Flickr, Basecamp, del.icio.us, Feedburner, Mint, DropSend, Adobe (who now has Macromedia), and Yahoo!.

So, anyone got some extra Xmas bonus funds to send me?

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Note: Normally I would have posted this on FrederickFaulkner.com, but I'm doing some back-end management that is limiting my posting on that site. I will re-publish this post there as it is more of an appropriate forum than Let's Ride.

So WordPress.com launched today. Everyone at once now: "Hurray!"

That’s not a sarcastic statement. It is a good thing...competition is a good thing. That is how Six Apart has to look at this with WordPress.com being a direct competitor to TypePad. But while WordPress.com will get a lot of fan fare into the medium as an alternative hosted blog software, TypePad has some advantages going for them (even with the service
issues) that most bloggers don’t think too much about when they pick services. In one word: Portability.

Recently at BlawgThink! Peter Flaschner of The Blog Studio had a session on "Costly Mistakes for Newbies." One of the few mistakes that most newbie bloggers do that is not just a monetary mistake, it is a flexibility mistake, is not owning your own domain.

I couldn't agree more.

Most bloggers who picked TypePad did it for the stable platform that it is and for the cheap monthly hosting fee. They wanted the down and dirty, basic version of Movable Type. Sign-up, give them a credit card number, pick a blog name, and you're off and running in 10 minutes or less. It is a great model. This model has made Six Apart a lot of money, and money that WordPress.com won't see because their service is free (still a great selling point), but I digress. One of the most overlooked features of TypePad, and one that costs extra money, hence why it is overlooked, is domain mapping.

Once you publish your blog with a http://myblogname.typepad.com
you were sunk whether you knew it or not. Now if you mapped your TypePad account to a domain name like http://www.yourblogname.com you could change your back-end system (like from TypePad to WordPress.com) almost seamlessly and your visitors wouldn't even know it. In reality, if a TypePad user were to switch blog services the financial implications are minimal, the readership issues are HUGE. HUGE because there are a lot of readers who do not use RSS, and hence will not know you have changed locations. Those readers may not visitor your blog daily, but rather weekly, monthly, every other month, or just when they have time to surf the Web. Now you have lost readers. Maybe forever (though the loyal ones will find you via tools like Technorati).

A related issue comes with your News Feeds (XML, RSS, Atom syndication feeds). If you never changed the default setting you have the same problem with your domain name. Now if you set up an account with Feedburner from the beginning, never giving visitors an opportunity to subscribe to the raw (XML file, you are in somewhat better shape. By giving your subscribers a feed that is actually a third party feed that can change the source, you have enabled a part of your site to be portable.

Now SixApart does have their fair share of making up to do. They have already announced a rebate for up to 45 days fo service for free depending on who inconvenienced you felt with their outages. An interesting take on this type of customer service for sure. But even after the rebate offer there are still reports of outages that are causing customers to pause and seriously debate the cost/benefit analysis of moving hosts.

Just today Paul Cheney over at Radiant Marketing Group posed the quesiton with Toby Bloomberg about what features could TypePad add on that will be more appropriate for small business owners? Personally, I think TypePad is not geared for SBO. If you really want a blog system, one that can do much more than blog, get MovableType (or WordPress). Spend some time and energy to find someone who will build your blog (on your own domain name) for relatively minimal ammounts of money (yes, blogging is a marketing strategy and should be spent like one). Some hosts already have MT or WP ready to go (see Dreamhost and MediaTemple). These systems are built to do more for SBOs and have much more flexibility than TypePad does. Now, I understand that a lot of SBOs like TypePad because they don't have to get their hands dirty with code, hosting,
and stats. They are just "users." I say MT makes you a "power-user" and opens the door to so many features that TP can't give you. I also agree with Paul that this is a huge vertical market that someone is going to capitalize on sooner
or later (like LexBlog has done for the legal market) and if I had the resources I would do it myself.

So just like Will Smith and Martin Lawerence say "Bad boys. Bad Boys, whatcha gonna do?" Are you going to stay or switch? I think many more still have to debate all the costs involved before making that decision.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's November 1st, and that means it is time for the Fall CSS Reboot. What's CSS Reboot?

CSS Reboot is a community event for web professionals. On November 1st, 2005 at 12:00 GMT Rebooters from all over the world launched their web standards-based redesigns (or designs) simultaneously, bringing traffic, interest and a little respect to their sites.

I might actually participate in the spring one...who knows. I'm definitely going through a reboot right now behind the scenes, but I can never decide on one design style. And with the plethora of new inspiration, it might be some time before I get to a final decision.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Personal Development
• Living With Music
• hribar
• morethanseven

Check out all the designs and rebooters at CSS Reboot.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is more of a reminder post for myself, but if you find any of the following links/open source software interesting for your firm, company, or personal use, great!

NOTE: I have not looked at these in-depth and therefore do not put a stamp of "recommended" on any of these.

Moodle - eLearning Course Management System (http://moodle.org/)
"to help educators create effective online learning communities."

phpAdsNew - " phpAdsNew is an open-source ad server, with an integrated banner management interface and tracking system for gathering statistics. "
http://phpadsnew.com/two/index.html

Group Office - "Group-Office is a Groupware suite containing a base system and different modules. The modules are designed in a way that groups of people can collaborate online."
http://www.group-office.com/

WebCalendar - "WebCalendar is a PHP-based calendar application that can be configured as a single-user calendar, a multi-user calendar for groups of users, or as an event calendar viewable by visitors. MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2, Interbase, MS SQL Server, or ODBC is required."
http://www.k5n.us/webcalendar.php

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I periodically (more often than not) want to play around with Let's Ride. To make it something better than it is today. Nine times out of ten I never do anything with it, mainly because what I want to do involves adding a new plug-in, which requires me to play around with the templates, and tweaking, etc. Well with my recent DB crash, I have brought Let's Ride to life with a basic MT 3.2 template. So in mapping out what I want the new Let's Ride to be, I am going through some hard thinking of what plug-ins do I want to incoroporate into the new templates.

This causes me to pause and ask myself--again--what is the purpose of Let's Ride and what do I want to accomplish with the plug-ins. So I am in a period of developing my own site requirements and trying to come to grips with basic decsions on what I will implement in the next "version" of Let's Ride. If you run MT and you are looking to give your site some "umph", head over to the plug-in directory to see what they have to offer. Chances are you will find something that makes you go "ooh ooh, I want that." I find I do that WAY too often.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm proud to announce that I will be presenting at BlawgThink!, brought to you by the great innovators (Matt Homann & Dennis Kennedy) who brought you LexThink!. I will be accompanied by an all-star cast that is sure to impress any blawgger. I will be speaking on the session of "How'd you do that? Technical tips, tricks, and problem-solving techniques." The best part...PowerPoint is not required. This is a different kind of conference. Not your normal set up. BlawgThink! is set up LexThink! style, which means it is all about collaboration and sharing opinions for the betterment of the group. I will, however, probably have my laptop powered up and will be showing some live examples and/or "live" troubleshooting. I'm guessing, I'll be covering more on the topics of "how do I implement that cool new thing/tool/AJAX widget on my blog" vs. "I get this 500 server error", at least I hope that is the case.

So here is the real 411 on the conference:

2 Days (Nov. 11-12)
Day 1: Learn about blogs and how you can leverage them for you or your firm
Day 2: Think Tank where the agenda is set by the group. VERY COOL STUFF.

Want to attend? Shoot Matt (matt [at] lexthink.com) or Dennis (dennis [at] lexthink.com) an e-mail. It is invitation only.

Need some convincing? Check out these posts:

Why is BlawgThink important?

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and not a lot of time to write about them, or not enough to have a good post (not that a one liner can’t be a good post).  But with all the things going on in my life at work and home here is the short and sweet list; a brain dump per se of what I’ve been thinking lately. 

No more Marshall Fields on State Street.  Federated Department Stores will dump the Marshall Fields name for Macy’s in 2006.  One more store I, and many more in Chicagoland, won’t shop at when the conversion happens.  This was a good marketing move why?? Hey Federated!  We’re NOT NEW YORK! Here’s an exhustive list of other lost nameplates.

Marty Casey lost the frontman job to JD Fortune on Rockstar INXS last night.  Oh well, our local boy d.  But all is not lost, now Marty (and the Lovehammers?) gets to open for them on their upcoming world tour. 

I’ve been busy at work dealing with the aftermath of Katrina (in a good way), it is good to know that Ernie is ok.  Rita is on her way, building strength, and that worries many in Texas and the rest of the Gulf Coast.  Which reminds to ask, what’s personal your disaster plan?  Do you know where to go if something happens to you or your family?  If not, better get a one.

iPod Nano came out last week. Very slick!  Very sexy in true Apple fashion.  Still won’t get one because Apple refuses to put an FM tuner on their musical bundles of joy.  Just makes it impractical for me for how I use my MP3 player.

Note to all hotels, if the fire alarm goes off at midnight, make sure your front desk staff know what to do, how to handle guests, and to apologize.  The Grand Geneva Resort needs a lesson.  “It was not our fault” is not an acceptable answer. Nor is “We didn’t ask you to evacuate your room, why are you here at the front desk?”  err..because last time I checked when a fire alarm goes off your instincts is to evacuate your room and we are here to see if it is safe to go back to our rooms.  Oh, and they never said they were sorry for the inconvenience.

Continue reading "Short and Sweet: Brain Dump of Recent Thoughts" »

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

eBay today announced that it will purchase Skype for $2.6 Billion. That is an interesting move. Per the press release on Skype's Web site:

The acquisition will strengthen eBay’s global marketplace and payments platform, while opening several new lines of business and creating significant new monetization opportunities for the company. The deal also represents a major opportunity for Skype to advance its leadership in Internet voice communications and offer people worldwide new ways to communicate in a global online era. Skype, eBay and PayPal will create an unparalleled ecommerce and communications engine for buyers and sellers around the world.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Six Apart released MovableType 3.2 last night. The Professional Developers Network has been getting teasers for the last couple of months, but it is now here. Overall the community is really happy withthis release. There are a lot of improvements that should make this product one that competitors will be looking to catch up to. Some of the new features include:

• It's a free update for any licensed user of MT 3.x
• There's a $30 discount for personal users
• All licenses support an unlimited number of blogs now
• The system overview is new, letting you manage all your blogs in one place
• We've got the best spam protection and community management around
• And, as always, MT comes with great support and the backing of all you ProNet members

OK, that was canned verbiage, but it is bet best short explanation possible. I downloaded my upgrade this morning, but won't install until tonight (while my wife is at the Bears game). Let's Ride is going to be a better place...

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love social software. I love the fact that we, as a worldwide community is willing to share our lives with each other. I do, however, also love hosting my own stuff. There is a certain level of "wonder" at who is looking at your photos, downloading them, using them, etc. I have experimented with Flickr and love it. I love the uploader tool, tagging, etc. But Douglas Bowman over at StopDesign made me want to host my own photo blog all over again. Check out his Photo area and now he has templates available for us to make one too! And his documentation is a work of art.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It doesn't get much better than Dreamhost. I got their always hilarious newsletter today and discovered that DH now supports Ruby on Rails. Now for the average bear, Ruby doesn't mean much, but to the Web developer community, this is huge. (well to me at least) You see Ruby on Rails is a newer programming language/application that allows people to create cool Web apps like Odeo, Backpack, Basecamp, and TaDa. Originally developed by a team at 37 Signals, a Chicago Web consultancy firm, Ruby is giving Web developers the power to do very cool things. Now that Dreamhost has Ruby running, I'm very anxious to look more into it. (in my spare time from my new job)

So if you are looking to get your own Web host, Dreamhost is the one. Trust me, they have very competitive packages for the features and bandwidth they provide. Check them out.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Um...how many of us do you think are kicking ourselves right now for not getting in on the ground floor?? Too many. Too many.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In an effort to make my blogging life easier, I downloaded the 30–day trial of BlogJet. BlogJet allows you to write posts in a little program locally on your computer and then post them later when you can connect to the Internet.  I ride the train two hours a day and that time is the most efficient for me to write a blog post.  My old method included writing it in Word and then copy/paste the post into MT when I got home.  While it worked, it was inefficient.  BlogJet can let me write the post, extended entries, spell check (something I crave), upload images and files, and more in a simple WYSIWYG editor.  You can even edit the code and other properties as well.  This is my first post with BlogJet, so we’ll see how well it works when I synch up. 

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 06:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It came today. I'm so excited! Today I received my evaluation copy of a Mirra Personal Server. And just in time too! I'm having problems with my desktop and I'm freaking out that I might have to go through a horrid project of buying a new computer and installing everything all over again. From what I have heard from people like Rick, if I have my desktop backed up on my new Mirra, this should be a very painless process. I'll be writing a bigger review of my experience with my new Mirra later. I think this one will go beyond the 7 Day Rule. More to come.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The concept isn't my own, but it is a great rule. Any new software you attempt to try, you will know if you should keep it after using it for seven days. If you don't use it, delete it off your computer. If you do use it, purchase the product (most have demo trial periods) and be happy with your purchase. I'm trying a new software product on my laptop called ActiveWords. I have known Buzz, the creator of ActiveWords, for over a year now when he introduced it to me last year. I ran into Buzz again this year at ABA TECHSHOW, BlawgConnect.2005, and at LextThink! and he convinced me to give ActiveWords another shot. Of course it doesn't hurt to have an army of supporters/users in the same room as well at the time. I tried it last year for 60 days, but never committed to really trying it out. I've started to play with added new trigger words and processes to make my life a little easier. So far I love that it integrates into programs such as Outlook. I can create a trigger word that will start a new e-mail to a set list of friends. There are more advanced features such as scripting which I need to read up on a little more. I'll give you a verdict next week to see if ActiveWords meets my 7 Day Rule on trying new software. This one looks promising.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Bravo! Bravo! This is a hearty bravo to the entire blogosphere for taking on comment spam head on. The industry has decided that the comment spammers need to be stopped. So Google has taken the lead by utilizing a rel attribute for links that will not allow comment spammers to use their links for better page ranks. Other blogging software tools have accepted this solution and endorse it. So bravo to Six Apart, Google, and all the others for stepping up to the plate and taking a big swing with our big bats.

For a quick overview for MT users, check out their ProNet blog for an introduction to rel="nofollow".

UPDATE: I've had two trackback's so far to this post and I wanted to do a brief comment back. I agree with Jay over at Don't Back Down. rel="nofollow" is only part of the solution. I guess I've been so hopped up on comment spam lately that I didn't think this post all the way through. I do use other plug-ins to help my comment spam problem such as MT-Blacklist, MT-Throttle, TypeKey, and I moderate all comments. This is just one more way to help fight the fight. Comment spam will never go away, just like it won't in the e-mail world, but every step helps. I also agree with Aimless Words as it is an implementation thing. Ideally we would all love to have a little more control over what gets a rel tag or not. Maybe it is just a matter of time before the guys in the MTProNet build an upgrade to the plug-in.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

I'm always trying to do my Web work better. I am finishing reading a great new book by Dan Cederholm (who redesigned Inc.com and FastCompany.com. His book Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook is an excelent, easy read for beginners, or intermediate CSS and Standards learners. Once I get the template down pat I'll skin the rest of my site. WARNING: I'll be moving to a .php end tag, so expect some 404's if you are linking to me...

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 06:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you have an RSS feed and you haven't checked out Feedburner, you should give it a good look. I did about a month ago from a recommendation from Rick Klau and his blog tins. I have to say that I'm impressed. So impressed I implemented it on our feed at work and I have been blown away by the type of information it provides.

What is is? Feedburner is a service that takes your RSS feed and gives you the ability to track it. Currently if you have an RSS feed, which is essentially an xml file that is code, you can't track click throughs, aggregator types, and other statistics and analysis you can from a normal HTML page and an analysis program. Feedburner gives you that ability and now I can see what is hot. What is not. And it gives me a better understanding of my readership. Same applies to my work feed which is for an online magazine. Well Feedburner has taken it one step further with it's Publicize features. You'll notice my "XML" button has a little flame next to it. That is one way Feedburner is publicizing its service. While you don't have to use the "flame version," I choose to for now. I saw today they have added this:

It is basically an animated .gif file based on your content from your RSS feed. I added it to my signature file on my home Outlook account. I also added it to my navigation on my wiki. Now you can update your friends and collegues on your blog postings if they don't visit often.

UPDATE:
So it just dawned on me that I really didn't explain much in this post based on the title. So why is Feedburner becoming the next killer app? Well it isn't that Feedburner is becoming the killer app like e-mail was back in the '90s. No, Feedburner is becoming the best killer app to tracking RSS as campaign management was to e-mail marketing. By having the ability to track not only what is popular by click-throughs but also on what browser is pinging your feed, news aggregator (like FeedDemon and Bloglines) a person (or marketer) could start to tailor the content on that feed (or website, blog, etc) to the audience. It is one more measure tool that we can use. And right now they are the only game in town.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Note to Microsoft: You know you highly popular (read: most users don't know they have any other decent choices because it didn't come as an option on their OS) is in trouble with you start to see articles and Federal officials telling the public to use other "more secure" browsers like Safari, Mozilla, and the sorts.

TAKE THAT! BUYAH!

More to Read on this:
Businessweek: Internet Explorer Is Just Too Risky
MIT's Technology Review: Government Agency Recommends Non-Microsoft Web Browsers

Now I have to agree about using IE. I think it is horrible and there are definite alternatives out there. I personally am a Firefox fan. I do admit I have to switch over to IE every once in a while to do certain things like pay some credit card bills online and access work email from home. But othe than that, Firefox is the way to go. I have used Opera as well, but I need to play around with it more. My two favorite features of Firefox are tabbed browsing (no more multiple windows in the taskbar) and mouse gestures (allowing you to navigate back and forth with the mouse only). Give it a try, you'll soon be convinced that there is a whole new world of alternatives out there.

So Microsoft has started to realize this and they are taking action. Scoble posts that the IE team is on the case to fix bugs, security issues, and add features that the other browsers are providing. The buzz is growing. IE better get their act in gear. Open source is creeping up with great alternatives to MS Office, Outlook, and the sorts. Soon the monopoly will begin to cruble. Whatcha gonna do Bill?

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I have been donned with a wonderful thing today, a Gmail invite. Why is this cool? Well it is for a couple of reasons.
1.I get to be one of the first (not counting the other couple thousand that already have Gmail accounts, but I'll take in the first couple thousand) to give this new free service a shot.
2.1 Gig of storage space and searching capability from Google.
3.“Conversation” tracking. Meaning that Gmail will sort mail by “re: the same subject line.”
So exactly what do I plan to use my Gmail account for? All those frickin' e-newsletters I subscribe to at work and home. I will be able to take back my Inbox(s) a little more now. I will have a gig of storage, and the most popular search feature at my disposal. It is a no-brainer to me. Oh, and I'm a Google fan, so why not support the Boys a little, maybe they'll make me a little richer when I own their stock someday.

From what I saw today after I activated my account, there have been some upgrades since the last review I read. The most noticeable to me is that they Gmail put a graphic border up around the message itself, allowing you to differentiate if an ad is part of the email itself, or if it is a Google Adsense ad. Before, if you had a white background email, you couldn't tell where the message ended and the separate ads began.

So how did I score this account? Well this is in thanks to two things. One is the kind generosity of Tevor Cook over at Corporate Engagement. He put a post on his blog about having three Gmail invites to give out to the first three people that emailed him. I caught it shortly after he posted the message though my news aggregator. I shot him a quick email with the request, and whala...Fred gets a Gmail account. So far Gmail doesn't like to play very well in Firefox, but I'll get more into it at home.

So how does Google plan on rolling out Gmail to the masses? Right now they are allowing users who have had an account for over 30 days to have 3 invites. You send an invite to a friend/user/collegue (hopefully who you know will us it, or it is a wasted invite) and they get an account. Then after another 30 days you get another 3 invites. So I'll hopefully get a couple of invites in a few weeks.

More to come.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got my monthly MIT Technology Review this weekend and it alwaya amazes me what is being developed in the world, but more on that later. The inside cover and first page is an ad for Google Labs. It has a picture of the inside of a parking garage with six pilars on it. Each pillar has a different number on it (looking to be random) with only one pillar with a big "?" on it. The ad reads "Nothing's a No-brainer inside Google Labs. Just when we've cracked one incredibly complex problem, another one pops up, then the fun begins. If you know what the number goes on the last column, tell us. You may be the solution we've been looking for." The kicker (read: I laughed when I read this, but it is true) is that on the bottom it looks like it has an answer, but instead it reads "A: some resumes we get go straight to the front of the line. Lie the ones that arrive with the right answer to this problem."

Ok, so this is in a national magazine, that goes to a population demographic of probably Really Really Smart People. I just get it for the articles. :-) But think about it. If you are running a company that wants the best of the best, from a national pool of really smart people, why put a classified out on the Web? Just spend your money on an ad that will give you the liptmus test you need by getting the answer to a complex problem similar to what you will need from them everyday. But then again, Google has never been known to be ordinary have they?

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 09:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently did a little modification to my RSS feed. Some of you may have noticed, others may not have. To see how many people are actually reading this blog (seeing how no one really wanted to comment on it before I took the functionality down) I transferred my feeds to Feedburner, a RSS statistics company. So what does it tell me? Well by default your standard Web stats program can't track too much about your RSS feeds. How many unique subscribers you have, how often it is pinged, etc. All you can tell is that it is getting read, by somebody, or some robot. Well that is exactly what Feedburner does. It tracks unique subscribers, new subscribes for a certain time period (last 24 hours and last week), plus it lets you see what blog posts are popular clickthroughs to your blog. Rick has it and so does Matt, so I thought I would give it a try. Turns out there are other people reading this blog besides me and my dad! I probably wouldn't have known that too much if I hadn't put my feed on Feedburner. Of course Sitemeter is telling me who is coming, but it is so random, I wanted to know who is really reading.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For some reason I have felt that this weekend was a long weekend when it really wasn't. I have atributed this to a very productive weekend...at least for me. Friday night was dinner and a movie. Saturday was the gym in the morning, shopping in the early afternoon, a retirement party and then a graduation party later that night. Today I cleaned the condo while my wife was gone. I did some shopping to fix my computer and give it a couple of upgrades and I got my network back up and running (writing this in bed while watching TV). Tonight we went to dinner and wrapped up a little laundry. For some reaon, this seems like a lot to me.

To top off my productive weekend I got a wiki up and running on my Web server. So come play in my sandbox. If you don't know what a Wiki is and where it came from, read this.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saw this in the June issue of Business 2.0. LaCie's d2 Bigger Disk has a frickin' Terabyte of storage in an external drive the size of college dictionary. A TARABYTE?!!?! Oh, and only for a whopping $1,200. It has a USB connection or a Firewire as well. So as I'm reading this the other day, my wife Cyndi asks me what I'm all hoopin' and hollerin' about. I try to explain what a tarabyte of storage is and the classic blank stare comes up on here face and she says “there go talking all that techno stuff on me again.” So I say it is 1000 gigabytes. That didn't work. Then I said it was like listing to constant music for almost two years (according to the gizzmo information). Still the blank look. So I say it is like a billion floppy disks. Still a blank look. So I gave up. She just asked with the classic sarcasm “So are you telling me you want one?” I just replied...”Not yet.”

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't think so. I have to say that I have been very impressed with my Skype account and for one reason only. I get to stay in constant communication with my brother overseas. I have to admit though I talk to him more via AIM than I do on Skype, but when we have used it—it has been worth every once of hassle. And it really isn't a hassle using Skype, it is the connection my brother is on (a DSL Satellite connection). I don't use Skype at work though, or I bet I would use it more to talk to him. I just don't want to put the program on my work box. I do have AIM though. I can multi-task a lot easier with AIM though than I could with Skype. Well what got me talking about it again is that I keep on seeing more and more about Skype coming up in articles. The most recent is in MIT's Technology Review, June Issue. You know it is big when you get written up in that trade rag. I say give it a try if you have a headset to use. It is worth it if the alternative is spending lots of $$ on International calls.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For all of you who hate the big boys over in Redmond, WA, here is a funny little Web site that is a cool little marketing technique for a new product. Check out See Who Got Fired. My favorite one is the Clippy one.

Of course I don't care for the product they promote. I choose these guys instead.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 09:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well Google better look out. I heard today that Amazon launched a new search engine yesterday. A9 combines the best of both worlds, Google's search results and Amazon's book catalog. And if you have an account with Amazon like I do, you can even take advantage of other features. I gave it a test run today and here is how it works.

Say you do a search on "Website Design." You will get all of Google's results for "Website Design" and then you will notice two other little tabs on the right of those results with the labels "Open Book Results" and "Open Search History." If you click them, columns open and give you other results. The Book Results are results from full text searchse from Amazon's DB. Then if you have an Amazon account and are logged in, you can see your history of searches on the Search History column.

So with this giving Amazon a powerful portal, why would Google give their results to the competition? Well I guess for the same reason they had a deal with Yahoo! until late last year. Regardless, Google better watch out, the power of combining Amazon and Google results together, I might be compelled to search on A9 now instead of Google. Oh, and just to continue with the trend of other major search engines, there is a toolbar too for IE.

Other Sources:
MIT Technology Review: A New Search Engine From...Amazon
LawLawLaw by Erik Heels: Amazon Splits into search waters

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have got one more cool app. added to my new laptop arsenal. Skype. From the makers of Kazaa, this P2P VoIP service is the greatest! I just tried it with my dad and it was amazing. Not perfect, but perfect enough to be able to talk to my brother across the world for FREE.

Here's how it works.

Skype is like I said a P2P VoIP program. It basically is an Internet telephone that is free at the moment. So think of it as a voice Instant Messenger program. You add contacts just like any other IM program and you connect just the same. The cool things about it that beats IM hands down is:
1) It is encrypted, unlike AIM
2) It is more personal than IM. Something about hearing someone's voice takes this technology to a new level.
3) It is free. The FCC hasn't put any rules down on taxing any fees for VoIP technology yet.

Now dad and I did run into some hiccups today. It took two trys to get a clear connection, but he was on dial-up and I was on wireless. So we are figuring that had something to do with it. But it was still a good conversation with what we had. Hardware you might be asking about? Well you obviously need an Internet connection. I bought a Plantronics .Audio 70 headset today for this purpose. So far I have been impressed. Dad was using his speakers and a boom mic. He sounded a little distant on my end, but still very clear. It was realtime. You didn't have to wait for his stream to stop before you could speak. This is something that is leaps ahead of any other VoIP program previously released.

So now think about all those long distance bills calls you make. Does the other person have an Internet connection? Like I said, I plan on using this to talk to my brother on the other side of the world in Iraq. And if I can get some of my other friends to do it...the possibilities are endless.

One last thing. If you get Skype, look me up at flfiv1228.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sounds like I watched the Matrix last night, but I'm in the AI session at ABA TECHSHOW this morning. AI is for Artificial Intelligence and how technology can extend our lives and make them more efficient. The big question is at what point do the machines do everything that humans can do that we become obsolete. While that question won't be answered here, this session is on how to use machines to optimize your office, and in this case a law office.

A definition that was just givin for AI: The study of what we know, what we think, and how we might get machines to do some of the knowing and thinking for use.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recenlty purchased a new laptop. A nice brand new IBM ThinkPad T40. You might remember me chatting about my desires to acquire a laptop to use on the train and organize my life a little more. Well I finally broke down and got one (mostly due to Uncle Sam giving me enough back on my tax return this year). With this comes some interesting issues. I have all of my purchased programs on my desktop and don't want to pay for second licenses to pu them on my laptop, so I have been trying a bunch of open source or alternative programs to MS Office. With the goal to not overburden my new machine with tested programs that I end up not liking, I have decided to go with Jeff Sandquist's Seven Day Rule. Basically it works like this. If after seven days of use on a trial period, if I don't like what I'm using, I will uninstall it to keep my new laptop clean. If I find that I'm using it for those seven days and it is effective, I will purchase the full version.

I think this is a brilliant idea as I am testing open source software such as OpenOffice 1.1 to replace my MS Office. I have been testing Bloomba for my e-mail client, and FireFox 0.8 for my web browser. I have also been testing the RSS aggregator in FireFox as to my paid version of FeedDemon. So far, FeedDemon is winning the battle and will most likely be a repurchase. I also will be getting a demo in ActiveWords tomorrow from Buzz here at ABA TECHSHOW.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had the privledge of attending the bloggers dinner last night at Ben Pao in Chicago. I had a great time meeting a bunch of new people who I have been reading over the last copule of months. I finally got to meet Rick, Tom, Erik, Matt, Jeff, and Ernie. It was a grand old time and we talked shop, politics, and other random things. So kudos to Rick for organizing it. I look forward to catching up with all of them again soon.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I normally don't talk about work on this site (or I try to keep it to a minimum) I wil be making an acception to the rule for the next couple of days. ABA TECHSHOW, the premier legal technology conference presented by my department at the ABA, the Law Practice Management Section, will be over the next couple of days in Chicago. I will be running around doing miscellaneous tasks from watching sessions to working our Section's booth selling books and memberships. I will also get the opportunity to meet some fellow legal bloggers and Chicago bloggers at a blogging dinner tomorrow night. Needless to say, I'm very excited abou this. I'm going to meet some very interesting, intelligent bloggers (Rick, Buzz, Dennis, as well as some that have blogs I don't read on a regular basis (Jenny, Jim and many more).

So over the next couple of days I will be blogging about the conference, observations, etc.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 09:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I normally don't talk about work on this site (or I try to keep it to a minimum) I wil be making an acception to the rule for the next couple of days. ABA TECHSHOW, the premier legal technology conference presented by my department at the ABA, the Law Practice Management Section, will be over the next couple of days in Chicago. I will be running around doing miscellaneous tasks from watching sessions to working our Section's booth selling books and memberships. I will also get the opportunity to meet some fellow legal bloggers and Chicago bloggers at a blogging dinner tomorrow night. Needless to say, I'm very excited abou this. I'm going to meet some very interesting, intelligent bloggers (Rick, Buzz, Dennis, as well as some that have blogs I don't read on a regular basis (Jenny, Jim and many more).

So over the next couple of days I will be blogging about the conference, observations, etc.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dear Boss:

After reviewing my needs as a website developer, I am requesting the use of discretionary funds to purchase this monitor from The "L" Store. At a whopping 3840x1024 resolution, I believe this product will make me become more productive as I can have at least three programs up at once that will allow me to multi-task to the best of my ability.

Yes, the $4599 price tag may be a little excessive, lets be honest, this thing is beckoning to be placed on my desk.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Your Employee
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOLY COW! This is the greatest thing possible. And it gets better. The "L" Store has one called the Grand Canyon Display that is enormous!

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Firefox, the latest Web browser component of Mozilla is by far now my favorite browser. While I will still have to use IE for some websites, there are so many features and fun things with Firefox that how can you go back?

Top 5 Things I Love About FireFox

1. Open new windows in Tabs vs. new windows in your task bar
This is cool if you are running lots of programs at once like I often do when I work on my websites, blogs, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc all at once. Tabs rule when you have multiple web pages open like entry pages for Moveable Type, a copy of your site up for verification the post looks good, and all other sites you are looking at.

2. CSS compliant
May seem like a small thing, but it is amazing to look at websites in a compliant format. I notice the difference because I code pages and know the frustration when you have to come up with "hacks" to CSS code to make a website look correct in IE.

3. Extensions -- like Mouse Gestures
Firefox allows you to get extensions, and there are a lot of them. So far the ones that I have downloaded are the Google Toolbar and Mouse Gestures. I have had the Mouse Gestures for about a day now and I'm hooked. Mouse Gestures allows you to, while on a webpage, click and hold the mouse button and then move back or forward and then release the button. This will then move you backward or forward in your browser history just like hitting "Back" and "Forward." I know Opera does this as well, but IE doesn't and I now get frustrated when I'm in IE and do a mouse gesture only to have nothing happen.

4. Importing IE Bookmarks
This is only good because I didn't have to manually import them. Firefox automatically imported them in. Saves time and hassel.

5. It can do almost everything that IE can do, and some things better
Lets face it, Microsoft may be King, but there are very viable alternatives to the Redmond bahemouth. I just think that Firefox outperforms IE in many respects.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am continuing to update this new site on a weekly basis. Sometimes more often than others (see next post as to why) So what have I done lately. Well tonight I updated the top banner. I'm sure Saab will be happy that I'm not featuring one of their new cars from a graphic that I found on their official website. Instead I replaced it with a nice new photo of an Aston Martin Vanquish. This photo is courtosy of my own digital camera and my mad skills while at the Chicago Auto Show two weeks ago.

I have also streamlined my navigation links to incorporate the bare necessitites right now. The other pages will return, but only after I have fully developed them. Oh, and don't click on the About This Site link yet. I still have to write that page. BUT the Photo Gallery was my pet project this last Saturday. I have taken the ideas of other photo blogs and came up with this scheme. The Comments link is still malfunctioning, but I hope to fix that this weekend.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm in the market for a laptop. I have somewhat of an idea of what I want, but need to do a little more research before I buy. You see, I have a really long commute everyday to and from work. Three hours to be exact. I find that I'm reading more books on the train. Current book is Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman. Brilliant book in the sense of giving a little history about web design and how it has evolved. I didn't realize that when I first started doing Web work in college I was really ahead of my time, yet, still doing VERY bad coding. But I digress.

So I want a laptop for a couple of reasons. First and foremost it is because I want to spend more time with my new wife. As horrible as it sounds, I have been married for almost three months and I have this "mistress." I actually have had this mistress for about 10 years now. She is currently in the form of a Dell Dimension 4100. What happens is that I come home from work, eat dinner and if I don't find something fun to watch on TV, I'm in the computer room messing around with the "mistress." I usually am full of ideas that I want to blog about, mock-up on a web page or two, etc. and some nights I end up giving it all up so I can go to the gym with my wife, or watch TV with her, etc. So in an effort to do more with my time (blog, build better websites, etc.) I want a laptop. I feel if I can write my posts on the train and connect quickly when I get home via WiFi to post my blog posts quickly (before dinner) life would be better. I can spend the time I want doing my computer stuff and still have time to go to the gym, etc.

Second, when I do travel, I want my own computer with me instead of "borrowing" one from the office. One that usually has a DVD drive in it, but no software to watch DVD's on. Or everyone and their grandma that I'm traveling with want to use it to check their e-mail via OWA. So I want to be selfish and have my own.

Third, (and this one is pretty stupid, but it is a reason regardless) I want to be able to not be confined to my back room to be on my computer. The age of interactive TV is here. Take "Who Wants to Be a Super-Millionaire" for instance. ABC has the little interactive TV logo that comes on so you can play along online. Also, and this is a seasonal thing, Cyndi and I can check our Fantasy Football stats realtime while watching the games. I know, we live in a condo, how hard can it be to run back and check the stats...trust me, a laptop would be cool to connect via WiFi and not move from the couch.

So what am I looking for? Well I have been checking out Dell M600, D600, Gateway 200x, Toshiba, Fujitsu, etc. trying to find the right combo of form, function, price, size, and weight. Centrino vs. P4 with a WiFi card. Sacrafices are going to have to be made. I like the idea of Centrino so I can get longer battery life out of it, but I have to consider that I can/want to do some web development on it as well, so maybe a P4 would be good. Oh, and I don't want to spend 2G's on it either. That might be a tough bill to fill, but I'm going to try.

I'll keep you posted on the process.

Posted by Frederick L. Faulkner IV at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)