A couple of years ago we found out that germ-a-phobes had something new to worry about - their cellphones were crawling with potentially lethal bacteria. The Centers for Disease Control agrees that "... Cell phones may have a notable role in the ... transmission of ... microbes to patients"

Now new evidence for the filth comes from a TV station in Los Angeles. KTLA found that over 90% of the cellphones in their newsroom had dangerous levels of bacteria, including staphylococcus.

Add all this to recent evidence that cellphones are spreading superbugs in hospitals, including antibiotic resistant strains such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and it's time to consider paying attention to some simple cell phone hygiene guidlines:

1. Wipe off your phone every day with a dry cloth.

2. Wipe it off once a week with baby wipe, or a soft cleaning cloth with a little rubbing alcohol.

3. Once a month, turn off your phone, dip a cotton swab in isopropyl alcohol and rub it around the button surfaces and crevices.

Some devices, such as Apple's iPhone, have fewer crevices and buttons and are therefore easier to clean. That's certainly something to consider, isn't it?

Curt is the founder & CEO of a timesheet software company in Austin, Texas.

A team of scientists in the US have discovered a correlation between weather volatility and the complexity in the various songs of mockingbirds. Carlos Botero at Cornell led
a team to investigate the relationship between climate and birdsong.

"As environments become more variable or unpredictable, song displays become more elaborate," said Carlos. "Survival and reproduction become more complicated when weather patterns are unpredictable because you don't know when food will be available or how long it will be around,"

Since complex songs indicate high intelligence, and females are choosier in demanding environments,
the male birds show off their big brains via song in order to attract a mate.

Botero searched sound archives worldwide and recorded songs himself in the wild. Then he and his
team compared those songs to climate records associated with the area it was recorded in. The
team found that species subject to more variable and unpredictable climates had more elaborate song displays.

The findings were published in the May 21 issue of Current Biology

Google is hosting it's annual I/O Developer's Conference in San Francisco. It started yesterday and ends today.

The big news, so far, is that Google has launched a new set of tools called Google Web Elements.
These are insanely easy Google widgets anyone can embed on their web site or blog; free for the taking, of course. In addition to the usual Google Search, there are maps, Youtube videos, customized Google Calendars and conversation feeds.

Of most interest to me; you can embed a widget of a Google Presentation slideshow or spreadsheet.

I'm most excited about the presentation feature. What a no-brainer way to post an info-mercial slide show on your site.

Other tidbits...

If you think developing an iPhone app is the get rich quick route out of the recession; don't get out of the unemployement line so fast. There are over a million apps available. At 99 cents a pop, number 35 on the "most popular" list makes about $20 a day.

I wanted to give you a review of Adobe Acrobat's new beta version of Presentations; a web-based PowerPoint knockoff going toe-to-toe with both Microsoft and Google. The screen grabs floating around the web look pretty slick. I tried to download it. Thirty minutes later the little spinny thing is still spinning. I'll try again later this week.

It was about a year ago that I first reported the end of a photographic era. Polaroid closed its last factory and went out of business. Yes, the pictures were small, grainy and awful. Yes, the chemical-ly peel back was disgusting and scary. But c'mon, admit it; you miss em' too.

That's exactly what an Austrian entrepreneur and a group of Dutch scientists are betting on and they are scrambling to resurrect Polaroid.

The group is enthusiastic, convinced they have a tiger by the tail. There are still an estimated one billion Polaroid cameras still out there in circulation. (I'm guessing a couple of them aren't for sale on eBay).

Actually, I admit that I miss Polaroid cameras. Digital cameras take pictures instantly. They are higher quality and you can see what you shoot as you shoot them. But unless you have a printer strapped to your... well uh, Polaroid clearly has a trump card there now doesn't it.

I actually love this quote from one of the retro-polaroidepreneurs (no, you won't find that word in any dictionary!) regarding the mainstreaming of digital photography and think it bears pondering.

"If everyone runs in one direction, it creates a niche market in the other,"

- Florian Kaps, Austrian entrepreneur

You may or may not care one wit about the demise and possible Phoenix-like comeback of Polaroid, but that's a pearl of wisdom that every entrepreneur should be thinking about right now.

"If everyone runs in one direction, it creates a niche market in the other,"

- Florian Kaps, Austrian entrepreneur

I just had to write that one more time. Words to think about!

400 years ago, Juan Ponce de Leon scoured Florida in a vain search for the legendary fountain of youth.

He didn't find it. But perhaps now scientists have discovered something similar, in a set of genes
that can slow aging.

Linda Partridge, at the Institute of Healthy Ageing in London has been studying various life extension
strategies for many years, from caloric reduction to elimination of certain proteins in test subjects (mostly flies and worms)

Dr. Partridge is speaking today at The Royal Society in London regarding "the discovery of mutations in single genes that extend the lifespan of laboratory animals." Take a look and maybe live longer.

Curt runs a resource management software company in Texas.

Are you letting your customers make purchases with their cell phone, yet? If not, it's time to get with the program. Let me put it this way, if you are in retail then not doing business via mobile device is akin to not doing online sales back in 1997. Why wait?

Pricegrabber.com just put out a new survey of mobile use habits of U.S. consumers.

Naturallly, I have some "startling statistics" to share from the study.

1. 58% of online shoppers have a web-enabled phone.
2. One in ten of them have made at least one purchase via mobile device.
3. 16% use their mobile device to comparison shop.
4. 14% are "window shopping".
5. 16% are researching product information.
6. 8% are looking for online coupons and other discounts.
7. There are now more than 40 million people accessing the mobile Internet among U.S. consumers.

If you are thinking that the economy will slow down mobile web adoption, think again. Less than twenty percent surveyed say that they will likely cut back their mobile services to save money.

In fact, the only thing slowing down the mobile web is the mobile web itself. Consumers complain that the biggest reason they don't shop via mobile device is it takes too long.

This sounds so 1997 to me.

I'm guessing 2010 will sound very 1998.

If you're looking for a techie business tip today, then please come back tomorrow. It's Memorial Day and I think it's important to actually honor the day and,more importantly, honor those that give meaning to the day - those that gave their lives serving our country.

Another year has passed in our prosecution of not one, but two, ground wars in the Middle East. Both have now lasted longer than World War II. Fortunately, the casualties remain not nearly as high. Still for those that have lost a loved one; when it's your loved one then that is one too many.

I point you to a Google Earth map mashup that is must-see satellite imagery today. It was developed by a member of the Google Earth Outreach team and shows the locations of both hometowns and where more than 5700 U.S. and Coalition forces have died since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Click on an icon of the fallen and it will give you a thumbnail profile of the name of the soldier, age (typically in their 20's I noticed) and how they died.

It is somber and chilling and sad.

And the least we can do, the vast majority of us who remain untouched by these wars while a very small percentage of us pay such high prices in personal sacrifices, is look.

In the meantime, I say a special thanks to Google Earth Outreach and this project called mapthefallen.org.

We'll get back to business tomorrow. May our soldiers in harms way come home soon and join us. I would much rather write about them on one of the other 364 days of the year than next Memorial Day.

Here's my favorite story of the week. Apple had to put out a press release warning iPhone and iPod users that those little earbuds could come with a pop.

Apparantly, they are prone to building up static electricity and the result could mean more than your fingers snapping to the beat.

Don't worry, it's not likely to lay you out flat. More likely, the risk is just a pop in the ears similar to the kind you get from skooching around on the carpet in your socks. Still, who wants that in your ears.

The press release makes for interesting reading.

Apple advises the following:

- Avoid synthetic fibers since they can carry more of a charge. Try wearing natural fiber clothing. (In other words, invest in a new wardrobe?)

- Use anti-static hand lotion if you have dry skin (Does The Body Shop sell that?).

- Raise the humidity in the room with a humidifier (Uh huh.. I need a humidifier to listen to my iPod now?)

- Keep your iPhone or iPod out of the wind, as that increases the risk of static electricity (no tunes with the top down in the car anymore, I guess).

Just a little something to get your mind off exploding batteries.

RFID tags are small devices incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. They are descended from devices initially developed for espionage. Conspiracy theorists are concerned about the potential loss of privacy inherent
in these devices, notably with regards to their appearance in $20 bills.

Now IBM has announced a Vietnam pilot project to attach RFID tags to shrimp which should
provide useful data regarding freshness, maximum temperature during shipment and other
food safety issues.

Ultimately this might enable seafood distributors to determine where during shipment
problems leading to low quality or ruined product have cropped up.

Although the shrimps' privacy is being violated, we all end up with a safer food supply.

Now that's a conspiracy we can all be in on.

Curt runs a resource management software firm in Austin Texas

I have to admit that I don't know where the Twitter train is going. All I know is that it's unique visitor stats are staggering.

Comscore just put out its April figures and Twitter is up to 17 million unique visitors a month in the United States alone; 32 million a month worldwide. That's a lot of two line non-sequitor thoughts. Just to give you an idea of how fast it is growing; Twitter had 19 million visitors worldwide way back in, er uh, March. Yes, that's 19 million to 32 million in one month. Woa!

For the record, Twitter has surpassed the newspaper of record. The New York Times gets 17.5 million unique visitors a month. Grey lady down!

Seriously, April 2009 may be the month that media historians will point to some day as the month that old media officially passed the torch to new media. New media is no longer new media. It's the establishment.

On a less serious note, all I can say is that neither has a funnies section.

Berkeley Breathed, the world needs you. Anyone got an Opus app?

In case you haven't noticed, Wal-mart isn't just rolling back prices these days. It's also rolling out a new look in its consumer electronics department. Clearly the discount juggernaut is looking to pick up Circuit City's old business and go toe-to-toe with Best Buy.

An analyst from Barclays Capital, Ben Reitzes, is taking these observations one step further. In an interview with Apple Insider this week, Reitzes laid out his suspiscions that Wal-Mart is actually trying to woo Apple into selling Macs in its stores.

"We believe Wal-Mart is actively pitching Apple to carry more products. With Wal-Mart improving its retail displays, we believe that the mega-retailer could eventually earn the right to sell select Mac products without diluting Apple’s brand."

- Ben Reitzes, Analyst, Barclays Capital

Fancying up the electronics department is perhaps a way to put Apple at ease that the Mac will somehow still look cool two aisles over from the scrapbooking notions and three aisles back from the Dora the Explorer bean bag chairs.

Uh huh!

Reitzes would argue its a short walk given that Wally World is already selling iPods and iPhones; a shorter walk than it is now from the Pokemon sippy cups to the Beverly Lewis potboilers in fiction.

Uh huh!

Well, if so, then it will be fun to watch this one play out. I can't think of a stranger corporate partnership, however.

It would be like:

- Perrier and Shasta hooking up.
- Paneras and Wonderbread co-branding together.
- Ethan Allen offering bricks and board bookcases.
- Wedgewood China and Chinnette dinnerware.
- Mercedes and Chrys- doh!

Do I have resistance to being cool?

I had a cell phone meltdown over the weekend. Actually, what happened is my old cell phone took a bath in a cup of Dr. Pepper (long story; let's not go there!). Naturally, this happened at a time that I was six weeks away from ending my two year contract and was waiting to switch carriers.

Needless to say, this precipitated me switching carriers and getting a new phone within 24 hours. It was messier than the Dr. Pepper soaked phone.

I wanted to want an iPhone. What tech writer worth her salt would have anything else in these times. It was between an iPhone or a Blackberry.

I chose neither.

I just couldn't commit to the touch screen only iPhone. I've been playing with them every chance I get. But in the end, that's all they feel right for - play, not everyday work. The iPhone felt just a little too precious in my hand.

Fine. That should have made it easy to go for the Blackberry. I seriously considered the Curve. It was a close second. But, it just didn't feel right in my hand.

In the end, I got a Palm Centro and I'm loving it.

It does everything the Curve does. It just feels right in my hand and intuitive to use - for me.

That's really what it's all about. It all boils down to what feels right in your hand.

I had a Sidekick for almost two years and hated it. This time, I was much pickier. It took me hours to make my decision this weekend.

My only gripe with the Palm Centro is the stylus. I'll let you know on this blog how long it takes me to lose the first one and what it costs to replace it.

I do like that it has a touch screen, but still has buttons - even the stylus (as long as I don't lose it) is nice.

It's smaller than the Curve or iPhone. But, the buttons are just fine for my chick-sized fingers. I'm guessing a guy with big hands would be less pleased.

I may not be that cool. But, I do like my mobile tool.

I drive a mini-van, too. What can I say?

Microsoft is keeping mum on this one, so far, of course. But according to Darrel Ward, a Dell product manager from its business client program (in other words, someone who is privvy to such matters); Microsofft is planning a price hike on Windows 7 over current pricing tiers for Windows Vista.

Huh?

Did Redmond miss the memo that we are in a nasty recession?

As Ward pointed out in a phone interview with C/Net over the weekend:

"If there's one thing that may influence adoption, make things slower or cause customers to pause, it's that generally the average selling price of the operating systems are higher than they were for Vista and XP,"

- Darrel Ward, Dell Program Manager, Business Client Program

This is just pure shameless, greed.

First let me address the shameless part:

Microsoft is well aware that it has millions of customers (both businesses and consumers) that sat out the Vista cycle and are currently limping along with XP. Why? Because they put out a lousy product in Vista, putting their customers in this position. In doing so, they have created an unusually high demand for the next Windows version despite the economy. So let me get this straight; they want to capitalize on putting us all through the dark days of Vista?

Nevermind! I don't need to do the greed part. I think the above paragragh addresses that too,

Ward did not give exact numbers of the Windows 7 pricing structure this Fall. But he did lament that the prices are such that they will likely delay adoption for government agencies, schools and smaller businesses on tighter budgets.

All I can say to Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, is what a way to say thank you to your customers who did not bail out and switch to Mac or Linux over these past couple of years while waiting for Microsoft to get its act together; what a way to show your compassion to loyal customers who are currently weathering these difficult economic times and what a way to show your accountability to flagging PC sales hit hobbled by an inferior operating system to sell over the past couple of years during an economic meltdown - thanks to you.

I'll keep my eye on this one and let's see how it plays out in the days and weeks to come.

Speaking as someone still using XP and who's been waiting to upgrade this fall, Mac is looking very good to me right now.

Attention small business owners: PC makers should just say thank you to you right now! In a raggedy economy, computer hardware sales have been in the dumper for months. One bright spot on the horizon is you.

According to IDC research, Individual shoppers and small businesses in the United States will spend about $18 billion dollars on PC-related peripherals, software applications, services and other accessories. Just to be clear: that's $18 billion on PC gear, not the PC itself.

Most of those extras are purchased at the time of the PC sale. 26% of that extra gear is purchased within the first three months of sale.

As for PC sales; small businesses tend to buy desktops to replace older model desktops and laptops tend to be an additional computer to what businesses already own.

The average business with less than 100 employees spends about $280 in extras (security software, monitors, printers, etc.) per computer.

Why am I telling you this? It's certainly helpful if you sell tech equipment to small businesses. But assuming you are the small business making computer purchasing decisions, isn't it nice to have a benchmark of what everyone else is doing?

Netbooks have been the darling of PC sales for the past year or so. But there's disturbing research out from IDC this week that may imply netbooks today will be nyetbooks tomorrow.

Pun intended: apparantly the chips are down. Intel's Atom microchips, the "it" chip of netbooks, was way down in sales for the first quarter of 2009 compared to the fourth quarter of last year. In fact, it was a withering 33% drop.

Ouch! That's way too big a drop to chalk it up to the seasonal post-holiday dip. 33% isn't a dip; it's a drop.

What it implies is that all those netbook makers didn't burn through as much of their chip stockpile as hoped and therefore pared down their orders during the first part of this year.

Naturally, high tech wags are already angsting over the rise and fall of the netbook.

To quote Mark Twain, "This report of my death is an exaggeration."

The first quarter of the year was just grim, period. If you recall, we were in the process of switching out Presidents with no stimulus bill in sight. People weren't in the mood to buy a carton of milk, much less a new tech gee gaw.

I haven't been as wow'ed about the netbooks as some. However, I admit that I am warming up to them and can't resist playing with one every time I see one on display at a store.

I think they are here to stay and will continue on their meteoric trajectory.

Here's why; they're cheap.

And, cheap is the new black.

Refineries have process automation software measuring and controlling
every valve and pump in the entire system. This allows them to make
gasoline cheaply and safely.

Imagine if your IT data flows were treated like oil in a similar system, dollarized
and controlled similarly.

The folks at Stroma have just such a system.

Curt runs a timesheet software company in Texas

Actually, the folks in Redmond prefer code name Office 14. Windows 7 and Office 14; there's something mathematically soothing about that.

Although Microsoft is now confirming what Acer tipped off a few weeks ago, that Windows 7 will be shipping out in PC's this fall in time for the holidays;

That's a pain for those of us holding out for Windows 7 trying to bypass Vista and upgrade all of it at once. Confession: I'm still limping by with Office 97. I'm not about to upgrade to 2007, when 2010 (Office 14) is less than year away.

Apparantly, there will definitely be a browser-based version of Office 14, as well, regardless of the release date. This is obviously a defensive move in reaction to Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Word is that Microsoft is promising to make their web-based Office suite compatible with Firefox and the iPhone.

What's the difference between a Lead IT Manager and a Deputy Technology Leader?

Flattening organizations leave smaller hierarchies and less room for distinction,
leading to recent and massive Job Title Inflation
for everything from secretaries to project managers.

Do you know who you're talking to?

$199 for an iPhone is tempting. It's the AT&T service plans that gives many folks pause. According to reports on Thestreet.com, AT&T is expected to announce a $10 a month price cut on their entry level plan this summer when the next iPhone model rolls out. That would be June 8th, if you're counting the days.

AT&T is wise to consider a price cut in this economy. I think by now they've sold an iPhone to all the early adopters and Apple faithful. If Apple and AT&T want to get serious about selling iPhones to real people, then they better come up with a pricing structure for real people.

Even with a $10 price cut, it's still outrageous paying the monthly nut on an iPhone. Right now, unlimited minutes are $99 a month. That doesn't include $30 a month for the data plan or other features. Again, $199 for the phone is tempting. Paying almost the same amount a month for the priviledge of using it; that's a whole other thing.

Meantime, T-Mobile will be releasing it's latest Google phone this summer. The G2 is expected to come in three colors (black, white and merlot) and include a 5 megapixel camera. It will be sold exclusively at Wal Mart for about $179.

Meanwhile the new Palm Pre is expected to also debut in June.

Next month will be an interesting month for smartphones.

File this one under good news and bad news. First the bad news: a new study by Pike Research projecting the dumping of so-called e-Waste (computing hardware components and parts) says its going to get worse before it gets better. E-Waste is expected to peak at 73 million metric tons a year globally in the year 2015. That's a lot of old monitors and printers, etc.

So what is going to happen in 2016 to turn things around? Pike's best guess is that all of these recycling programs we hear about will finally start hitting critical mass.

It can't happen soon enough. Consider this:

File this little factoid buried in the fine print as both good and bad news: on average worldwide, countries are recycling only 15% of their old tech gear. That sounds terrible, because it is terrible. The silver lining is that there's a lot of room to improve those e-Waste figures dramatically by just boosting the three P's (policy, programs and participation).

There are a number of companies that are demonstrating that the three P's can make a difference. I like to give credit where it's due; so hat's off to Dell, HP, Office Depot, Staples and IBM.

Staples launched its recycling program a couple of years ago. It will take old gear off your hands and give it a proper burial bound for recyling for $10 (you pay, not them) a component. Old ink cartridges will get you a $3 coupon for your next cartridge for certain brands (that's roughly a 10% discount!). The first year, Staples recycled over two million pounds of old gear.

Office Depot has a similar program and recycled 1.5 million pounds last year.

Dell accepts old gear for recycling for free. The Austin, TX-based computer maker has set a goal of recycling 275 million pounds by this year. It will clearly reach that goal, as it was already at 255 million pounds by the end of 2008.

HP is offering to buy back old gear and count it towards your next HP purchase and has set a staggering goal of reaching two billion (that's "B") by next year. Godspeed, HP. More power to you!

While others project and promise, IBM is the leader of the pack. It's recycling program launched more than a decade ago has, so far, recycled 1.5 billion pounds of old computing gear.

There's five companies doing the green thang.

Now, it's our turn.

Deep space probes beyond Jupiter can't use solar power because they're too far from the sun. So they rely on a certain type of plutonium, plutonium-238. It powers these spacecraft with the heat of its natural decay.

NASA is having problems now since the end of the cold war we've stopped producing any plutonium.

There are those who are concerned about blasting nuclear fuel into space on rockets that have a dismal safety track record (2 of the last 125 shuttle missions blew up - not a good ratio - imagine if your car did that!)

Curt runs a resource management software company in Texas

During the best of times, buzz words (especially in high tech) have a short shelf life.

The world has truly changed over the past year, as the economy has nose dived leaving us all shaken and wary. What seemed so important a year ago, is suddenly irrelevant, if not forgotten.

When was the last time you heard about:

- Version 2.0 anything; as in Marketing 2.0 or CRM 2.0. Adding on the 2.0 used to be a trendy way to imply we're all taking off into the next wave of the future. With the current economy, it feels more like we are frozen in time.

- RSS readers. Who has time? Who cares? Now everyone is Twittering instead and I suspect that will fade, as well.

- Social bookmarking. Yes, it's still around. But when it's all hands on deck to keep the company afloat, who has time to manipulate Digg rankings?

- Podcasting. If you can't monetize it, then throw it under the bus and move on.

- Corporate blogging. Yes, people are still blogging. But, it doesn't feel like a must-do anymore now does it? Again, unless there's a tangible ROI; chances are you have bigger fish to fry right now.

As for buzz words that still have buzz:

- Cloud computing.

- Open source applications.

It's real simple; they save money.

We're heading into that time of year when businesses may pick up a college intern for the summer or, better yet, hire a new graduate on staff.

If they've had any coaching, they assume you're going to check them out online making sure no unflattering spring break photos pop up on Google images.

It raises a lot of questions:

1. What off time, but online image, is too unprofessional for your organization?

2. Do you have a criteria for assessing what you find?

3. Is it so strict that you're going to have a hard time finding young talent?

The fact is that if you're ruling out every young professional with a MySpace of Facebook page, you're going to have a very thin pool of candidates.

Here's a modest proposal:

Instead of quietly blackballing a young candidate, coach them to clean up their online prescence. Assuming everything else about them is attractive to you, guide them in what you expect from them.

- Advise them to tighten the permissions on their social networking pages.

- Give them some guidelines of what pictures and other forms of self-expression are acceptable and what is not. Give them an amnesty period to clean up their profiles.

- Warn them that the company reserves the right to periodically check them out in the search engines.

- For the twenty-something just starting out in the professional world; the Internet to them has always been a playground. Introduce them to the Internet that is also the business world. Show them sites and blogs relevant to your business. Train them to use online business tools like Salesforce.com and Highrise.

Remember: you were once twenty one, too, and someone took you under wing. Someone told you how to dress, the importance of showing up on time for work, keeping your cool and losing the quadruple pierced ear.

Now, its your turn to do the 2009 version of the same thing.

I, personally, have about half dozen flash drives floating around among my briefcase, home office and, er uh, my dresser and the passenger seat of my mini-van. Are you starting to get the idea of where I might be going?

Flash drives tend to be just a little too portable. They are easy to lose. It's easy to forget what is on what (they don't come with label-making features).

What to do?

Here are some tips how to store your storage:

1. Color code your flash drives. Flash drives come in all sorts of colors. Take advantage of it. Stick with the common colors that you always be able to find. You can color code by either the type of file (example: blue - documents, red - pictures, yellow - video files, etc.) or by the task (example: blue - internal work documents, red - client files, green - financial files, yellow - personal, etc.)

2. Get a key box! You know; one of these! They come in all sizes and price ranges. If this is just for your home office, you can spend as little as $15 on a key rack and hang your thumb drives like Christmas ornaments. If you have a small to midsize business, you can buy a key cabinet that locks and is even fire proof.

3. Designate a zipper pocket in your briefcase or purse for your flash drive. If you always put it in the same place, you won't forget where it is.

4. Pick a brand and style of flash drive and stick with it. I have a Texas Longhorn flash drive that I got from the UT Coop last fall, while on pilgrimage to the Holy Land (but that's just me). I live in Connecticut. I assure you that no one is going to mistakenly pick up my flash drive for their own and walk away with it, at least not by accident. If school pride is not your bag (perhaps you went to OU or something), you can do something as simple as put a mark on your flash drive with a swipe of nail polish.

5. Get started by taking inventory. Gather them all up. See what's on them. Delete the ballast. Have one basket for flash drives that hasn't been inventoried in awhile. Have another for drives that have been cleaned off and are ready to be filled up again.

In the mid 1980's I was working on a port of the MINIX operating system, which is a very light
implementation of Unix that can run on very small unpowered hardware systems.

Apparently this research is still going on.

In the early '90's I was working on IBM's AIX on the PS2 (Intel) which was also microkernel based.

Nice to know people are still working on this stuff!

To dream the impossible dream, as the song goes. The high tech industry should be ashamed of itself, especially those of you who develop and sell operating systems.

I'm on a tear. I spent a huuuuuuge chunk of my weekend editing a short video on my laptop. Well over 50% of my time was spent rebooting the *#$%&^% computer from crash after crash. A four hour project turned into a fourteen hour project.

This is totally unacceptable.

Yes, yes... I could use more memory.

However, why should I need more memory to perform an application spec'd out to work on my computer?

Yes, yes... I'm limping buy with Windows XP until Windows 7 comes available this Fall.

However, my PC doesn't know it's 2009. Why should it matter?

The tech industry prides itself on innovation. New gee whiz tech gizmos and applications literally come out everyday.

The world needs a crashless PC more than that one millionth iPhone app or a touchscreen laptop.

If you think netbooks are a hot sector in PC sales, think how well a crashless computer would sell! I have no doubt that the response would be so phenomenal it might single-handedly pull us out of this global de, er uh, I mean recession.

Think how much energy the planet would save if operating systems didn't crash.

Think how much work productivity we would get back if operating systems didn't crash.

Think how much money we would save as a result.

Think how much stress it would relieve in the office, if you never had to worry about a computer crashing on you five minutes before a meeting when you needed to print off that last report on the way to the conference room?

Think how many marriages would be saved and soccer games attended by working parents, if not for staying at the office an extra hour or five dealing with a moody PC.

If Google can dream up data storage centers at sea...

If Apple can invent a smartphone that does everything but my laundery...

If Microsoft can... (sorry, nothing comes to mind right now)

You get my pointl. If the best and the brightest of the high tech industry can dazzle us with so many bling bling technologies and on such a ample and steady diet, then for crying out loud could just one or two geniuses in the bunch stop down for awhile and tackle this one. Google, I know you don't do operating systems for the PC. But why not blow a little of that "20% time" on this. I'm sure you'd have something out in beta in time for Christmas.

By the way, I double dog dare anyone from Microsoft to leave a comment below.

(Now, I'm about to hit publish. First let me kiss my lucky rabbit's foot, say a few Hail Mary's, close my eyes, clench my teeth and pray this sucker doesn't crash on me losing this entire posting.)

Fatwallet.com has a viral marketing system where
you can get cash back from referring people to the deals on their site. One of the guys
I work with says you can arrange deals there where you can get back in rebates and
other deals more than you paid for items. It's not as good as it once was, because
retailers are catching on, but coupons plus cash back situations plus other deals
can still make what you shop for far cheaper. It's a time vs. money tradeoff.

For example I can see my favorite bluetooth headset, the BlueAnt on sale for 80% off here.

I haven't actually used the site yet, I just heard about it, but I'm tempted. Happy Saving!

It's one of those ideas that is just so crazy, that it just might work. I first mentioned this story back in September, when Google had applied for a patent on a floating data center. This week; patent granted by the government. Oh my! Is this more than just talk?

The vision is that Google would build "water-based data centers" at sea on ships that would be powered by hydro-electricity. Fact: Data centers require a boat load (pun intended) of electricity. Fact #2: Electricity is expensive. Fact #3: Energy generated from harnessing the power of waves and water sounds like renewable, earth friendly energy to me (dare we call it "blue energy, instead of green"?).

I have only a couple of lingering questions:

1. If Somali pirates can take the world's largest oil tanker, the Sirius Star, with a few boats and rocket launchers; then how can a floating data center be invulnerable? Imagine a rogue band of pirates (a.k.a. terrorists) getting hold of Google's data?

2. What can Google do or not do with our data in International waters beyond the reach of sovereign nations?

Have you ever been jogging and you wondered "What is my heartrate right now and how fast am I going?"

The Europeans have the answer.

Ubergizmo tells us about heads-up-display (HUD) eyewear that gives a runner everything he needs to be informed about his progress.

They should be coming out soon.

Get a pair. You deserve a treat for the summer!

Curt studies new technology from his resource management software company in Austin