Paul Mooney

MIX.06 Gadget Contest

MIX.06 Gadget Contest

Users Taking Control

Harold McGraw III, chairman, president and chief executive officer of The McGraw-Hill Companies gave the opening Keynote here this morning at SIIA. His talk set the tone for the day, achieving growth and helping other people be part of it…..it's all about participation and interdependence.

We are going through a transformation and quoting Peter Drucker on the similarities between the growth of information to the growth of the Railroads and telegraph in the 19th century and the emergence of Radio, TV and the mass market of the 20th century. The mass-market will not go away, but we are now witnessing the rise of the mini-markets,  niche markets. The democratization of the media as we move from an industrial economy to a global information economy.

Then he got to the battlefield subject of piracy, we live in intellectual copyright courts. McGraw Hill along with many other content providers have taken a stand against Google's plan to digitize and enable the search of their copyright properties. Google's book search benefits Google and their stockholders not it's users.

ADVERTISE ON ROCKETBOOM

WHAT YOU ARE BIDDING ON

Rocketboom is a three minute daily videoblog based in New York City and is one of the most popular video shows on the internet.

For the highest bidder, we will create five original, fifteen second (minimum) - one minute (maximum) post-roll commercials that will span five days of programming, Monday-Friday, March 6 through March 10, 2006. Each day that week a different commercial that we create for your company will be played at the conclusion of the Rocketboom episode.

Rocketboom reaches a minimum of 130,000 people per day and each day's video, over the course of several days, receives over 200,000 complete views. Thus, the advertisement reach for this auction is currently a minimum of one million views.

The five unique advertisements, along with hyperlinks to your website, will also become a part of our archived web pages. They will remain freely available, searchable, index-able, re-distributable, and on demand. Additionally, direct links to each commercial will be available for at least one year.

The advertisements will be interactive when played by our online Quicktime audience (approx. half of our web audience). This means that at any time an audience member is watching the ad, they will be able to click anywhere on the ad, at any time during the duration of the ad, to launch a webpage link to your website in a separate browser window. Also, within the Quicktime version, your ad will exist via a chapter marker, making it easy for the audience to navigate to the ad from within the regular Rocketboom program.

At the end of the week's run, we will generate a detailed statistical report including an accurate count of successful video plays, top referrers, top regions of origin as well as provide you with a complete copy of our raw log files for all five days. We will later provide a video download report at the end of each month for three months.

This auction is a bid for advertisement space on Rocketboom, in addition to payment for our creative services. The actual advertisements (the content) will be created and owned solely by Rocketboom and exist as a part of our regular Rocketboom show under a creative commons, non-commercial, share-alike, license.

Good luck Amanda and Andrew, hope you get a million $$$. Vloggercon was just one year ago, but there is no snow today.....see you at SXSW

posted Monday, January 30, 2006 2:31 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Chinese Firewall Drill

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time - Abraham Lincoln.

A proxy server will set you free

Censorship in the age of information is untimely imposable, intelligent people everywhere will find the truth. All the commotion in the Press last week over Google.cn's complicity with the Chinese Government and the other stories about MSN and Yahoo not taking a stand all ignored humanities' innate ingenuity.

Overcoming censorship may prove easier then circumnavigation the misinformation and disinformation we are inundated with daily.

How to Outwit the World's Internet Censors, mentions Dynamic Internet Technology and UltraReach Internet commercial companies creating software or Web services that try to poke holes in China's great firewall. The Circumventor from PeaceFire will turn any Windows PC into a proxy allowing a networked community to circumvent Internet restrictions.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation will help you surf anomalously with the communications network Tor. It may have been created to aide file swappers, but can now help combat censorship the world over, so don't get mad at Google, Yahoo and MSN, join the EFF now. Please consider volunteering your time or volunteering your bandwidth.

posted Sunday, January 29, 2006 12:51 PM by paul with 0 Comments

SharePoint 123

SharePoint 123 Training Materials

Matt Ranlett and Brendon Schwartz are two of the many great people Amanda met at Tech-Ed 2005 and now works with through INETA. Last year they ran a brilliant training series concept called SharePoint 123 for which the materials are now available on their site. You can download hands on labs and training presentations. Pretty cool stuff. Yea, thanks....Amanda, hope to see you at SharePoint Connections back in Orlando.

posted Saturday, January 28, 2006 9:46 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Laughing at Bill Gates

Gates gives away a billion...almost

During a packed press conference in Davos, Bill Gates said his foundation would donate $900 million to fund the fight against tuberculosis, which claimed the lives of 1.6 million people in 2005. (This was no ordinary press conference: George Soros sat in the audience.)

After he made the announcement, the Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who was sitting on the dais with Gates, asked why he didn't just give a round $1 billion? Everyone laughed, including Gates. But he didn't have an answer.

C'mon Bill, you've got the money. It's just $100 million more. You could probably put it on your American Express card. Bono will get you one of those new "Red" cards and part of your donation would make its way to fighting AIDS in Africa. Not a bad deal, eh?

I hope Paul Allen invites Bill to the Superbowl next Sunday and if he decides to invest $900 million in Michigan they'll all cheer!

posted Friday, January 27, 2006 11:56 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Server and Tools Profits

Microsoft Reports Record Revenue

Microsoft announced revenue of $11.84 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2005, a 9% increase over the same period of the prior year, marking the highest quarterly revenue in the company’s history. Net income for the quarter was $3.65 billion, which grew 5% from $3.46 billion for the same quarter of the previous year. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.34. Net results included $108 million, or $0.01 per share, in tax benefits.

Server and Tools revenue grew 14% over the prior year on strength across the product line. The growth of SQL Server was robust with over 20% year over year revenue growth.

The Home and Entertainment division,  the Xbox Group, lost $293 million in the quarter

Demand for our desktop and server products from enterprise customers was particularly strong this quarter with significant sales and customer momentum from our recently launched server products,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “We recently conducted our annual customer satisfaction survey and remain committed to driving satisfaction improvements.  Our customers are responding very favorably to the value, quality, and improved security of our new product releases.

posted Friday, January 27, 2006 11:46 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Small Business Summit

Microsoft's Small Business Summit, March 14-17

During this FREE four-day online event, some of the leading voices in business today will present ways to get more from your IT investments, save time and money in running your business, and better connect with and market to your customers. You're invited to choose from over 25 webcasts that can help you gain a competitive edge.

You are also invited to an in-person event in Bellevue, Wash., on the first day of the Summit. Can't join in person? View the live webcast.

If you are one of the first 300 people to register and attend at least one live webcast during the Small Business Summit event, you will receive the highly acclaimed book "Small Business Kit"* FREE — a $50 value! While supplies last. Offer available in the U.S. only.

Attend three or more live webcasts during the Small Business Summit, complete and submit the brief evaluation for each webcast and you will receive Microsoft Office Small Business Management Edition** software FREE — a $499 value!

Free Webcasts for Developers - J2EE and .Net interoperability by Microsoft experts. Live Event!

Microsoft Learning Paths for Security - Data security resources to help protect your network from viruses.

posted Thursday, January 26, 2006 10:58 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Got 64 dotnet

What if Gotdotnet had a deployment and nobody noticed?

Gotdotnet had a deployment today. All the apps moved. DNS changed a bit. We went to screaming 64-bit Web servers.

So get over to Gotdotnet and put the pedal to the metal and if you hit any bumps send'em some feedback, the Gotdotnet Team loves feedback, they live for feedback.

Featured Group: Visual Studio Team System
CodeGallery welcomes the new Visual Studio Team System Featured Group, whose initial project members include: the Team Foundation Server Work Item Utility, which enables you to move work items from one Team Project to another and create a link to detailed instructions from the owner. In Team Build Samples, you can find helpful build automation samples for Visual Studio Team Foundation. The group's third project, Sun Screen, aspires to allow Java developers to work in the Visual Studio IDE, enabling mixed development teams to work on the same source and share a methodology through Team System. Teams work better when they work together!

posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 10:47 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Open Windows

Microsoft Goes Beyond EU Decision by Offering Windows Source Code

Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith announced Microsoft’s decision to license all the Windows Server source code for the technologies covered by the European Commission’s Decision of March 2004. The company is making this voluntary move in order to address categorically all of the issues raised by the Commission’s December 22, 2005 Statement of Objections. That document asserted that Microsoft’s prior technical documentation provided insufficient information to enable licensees to implement successfully certain Windows Server communications protocols.

Today we are putting our most valuable intellectual property on the table so we can put technical compliance issues to rest and move forward with a serious discussion about the substance of this case,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “The Windows source code is the ultimate documentation of Windows Server technologies. With this step our goal is to resolve all questions about the sufficiency of our technical documentation.

Listen to a Recording of the Press Conference

So who will buy the source code and how much will it cost?

posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 12:30 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Embedded Rock

Russia's main intelligence agency on Monday accused four British diplomats of spying — using electronic equipment hidden inside a fake rock in a park — as well as funneling funds to non-governmental organizations. The announcement came a day after state television channel Rossiya broadcast footage showing four British Embassy staff using electronic equipment concealed in the rock in Moscow to receive intelligence from Russian agents.

Watch the video from CBS News Russia: Brits Used Fake Rock To Spy | January 23, 2006 21:05:25

The British agents should have used Windows Mobile 2005 on their PDA's....

posted Tuesday, January 24, 2