Brian Brushwood from Scamschool would be proud of this….

Was able to prank Backblaze on Failblog yesterday by submitting a screenshot generated by a modified URL on Backblaze.

Allow me to share how I did this:

I realized when I checked my download status with backblaze they left the variables in the URL to come up with a length

https://secure.backblaze.com/online-backup-speed.htm?os=mac&mb=63264&throttle=50&kbitspersec=4264

For 63GB still have 24  days to complete the backup and it’s all visible in the URL:

So all I did was change the total space to something very high (630 TB) in the URL:

Submitted to failblog, and bam.

It would be cool if Backblaze said something more graceful, like. “WOAH,  you have a ton of stuff.. it’ll be a few years before this is complete.”

Luckily, online tools make it possible to continue sharpening your skills, even from afar. Problem with long podcasts like these, is you can easily waste your time if you aren’t picky with your podcast. If used wisely they are the perfect tools for in-between time (driving, flying, doing laundry, etc).

These are my 3 must-listen to  podcast resources:

• This Week In Tech – For the essential tech news, rockstar Leo Laporte is an incredible host and always brings super intelligent guests.
• This Week In Startups - Jason Calacanus does great job of bringing in incredible entrepreneurs and providing a mix of education/entertainment.
• This Week In Venture Capital -  The venture space is changing every other month. Mark Suster does a great job bringing in the top VCs and Angel investors.

Viddler has the man, the myth, the legend – The Todd.

I just gotta burst out and say that intelligent Sys Admins are invaluable in a small startup looking to stay efficient.

Exclusive/secret underground footage of Todd working on his computer, matrix style:

Update – forgot to mention the JAMES.. rockstar lefty that comes in as a closer for Todd.

I never really thought this concept applied to “physical businesses”. Ones that make things physical for people to buy (Google t-shirts do not count).

Well, while obsessing over my favorite new upcoming car, Chevy Volt, ran into a livechat with GM retiring executive Larry Burns.

Toyota recently announced they will not go down GM route as it’s doesn’t make business sense for typical margins. Larry responded very “google-like” to one of my questions with regard to cost of the new lithium-ion batteries.

It’s great to see GM act as Google would.  One more reason to get the Volt!

As a product guy, it’s been very apparent Myspace has been on it’s way out for many years, mainly due to it’s inability to innovate, and putting advertising efforts clearly ahead of it’s users.

When Jay Leno, a mainstream comedian, uses Myspace as center of a joke, it really questions the mainstream perspective on them.

Myspace is far from over though, and still has a chance to come back.

If I were over at myspace I would do two things to combat this before it’s too late:
What: Make it clear Myspace is going to change attitude on advertising, putting users first. Scrap all ad units and start over with more engaging campaigns. Reinvent itself.
How: Become socially transparent in this effort. Get feedback from users. Turn it into a conversation as apposed to a one way battle.

Update: NBC has pulled the commercial from it’s site. It used to be here and when you still google “Jay Leno new material” you will find it once existed on the site.  NBC and Myspace have a relationship on many levels, wouldn’t be suprised if someone asked for it to come down due to it hurting the relationship.

Mapping USB Thinkpad Keyboard Middle Scroll Key to OSX

Originally uploaded by sandieman

I am in love with my IBM Thinkpad keyboard and how much it saves your fingers. When your on your computer 10+ hours a day, efficiency is everything with the mac red nipple, saving moving hands on mac from keyboard to mouse 1000+ times a day.

There is one thing that is missing though when using it with OSX which is very annoying. What I am trying to get to work is the middle scroll key that you press and when pressing it it allows you to scroll up and down a website page or document. This is very important function for keyboard to work for me.

Alternatively a shortcut for scrolling (Ctrl-J) would be acceptable as well.

Apple OSX’s default keyboard mapping function is pretty simple and isn’t apparent howto get this to work.

If you have any ideas on howto get this to work, please let me know in comments below or @sandieman me on Twitter!

Thanks!

UPDATE: Smart Scroll fixed this problem for me. It’s a payed shareware application but worth it.

Recent Mac commercials (which I always love) share Windows guy freezing 2150 many years into the future. It’s making fun of the Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates commercial where Bill hints at next version of Windows. That being said, all this poking and competition has got me thinking on where it will be in 2040 (2150 being too far away).

What are pretty much guarantees:
Dropping prices in hardware
Culture changes at Apple and Windows
Opensource movement to continue to grow
Steve Jobs will die. (sorry folks, everyone does)

Rating past, present, future
Without using any formal metric (market share, revenue generated, etc), I would like to post my prediction of how the market will evolve based on a Wine Spectator point scale. Have made a few notes on why each of the trends.

What do you think?

Geoff DiMassi (godfather of Philly) did a great job helping put together the Ignite Philly event and shot some great video. I really need to get his camera as not only did he shoot amazing videos (in vidget below) but great photo’s.

Make sure to watch the Josh Kopelman’s amazing intro in the IgnitePhilly Vidget:

First, I love you mom.

Second, this is an amazing technique. My mom doesn’t know I am listening to music and I can hear her very clearly.

First of all, if you were even thinking about New Media Expo, you should be going.

If you haven’t introduced yourself yet and are going to New Media Expo, do it via Video. All you have to do is tag your video “newmediaexpo” or “newmediaexpo2008″ and it will go in general category of NewMediaExpo Videos. If you want to do an introduction, tag it as “newmediaexpointroduction” for it to go in introduction section.

New Media Expo is going to be a big event for Viddler. We are happy to setup our “virtual booth” up at the video section of New Media Expo, to help promote our next launch of “Brand Yourself” at Viddler. More information will come soon but watch the video for a sneak peak! forced teens vids: anime rape videos. public nudity movies nudity in public. teen lesbians toying in the shower christian sex toys.

I recently revisited the application to see how well it was growing. First of all the application is 100x more functional then it was a few months ago. Major kudos to the Geni development team! Second, my family picked up on it. My mother added everyone in family tree. My mothers uncle Frank was adding people. As of now it’s 55 immediate and many more extended family members in the tree.

Check out family tree (via flash embed):

Using the site  I really think all Geni needs is a few minor extensibility product improvements and it could be a top 100 internet property within a year. These are the same feelings I had when I was one of the first users of thefacebook.com in college .

Product Suggestions for Geni:

1. Flickr Integration – I already upload my photo’s to Flickr and treat that as my management toolset for photo’s (yes I upload to facebook but who wants that). Machine Tags preffered. Importing would work as well.
2. Email Photo’s – 100,000% needed if you want me to keep on updating geni as often as I update flickr via my iPhone
3. Viddler Integration – last thing I want to do is upload more 150 Meg videos. Somehow I need the ability to store family videos on Geni. Machine tagging Viddler videos would be awesome use for this.
4. Family Privacy – after going over my girlfriends there was a few divorces and family history that she didn’t  want to get shared. Certain family members weren’t able to be put under a “unclassified person” so father-daughter relationships weren’t able to be fulfilled
5. Girlfriends – my girlfriend is not a partner, she is a girlfriend. I want the ability to be able to classify her as that on Geni.
6. Facebook Geni App – Hijacked – someone else sitting and profitting on Geni’s name on Facebook. I invited family to use the app without seeing the full functionality and painfully regret it. Geni should contact facebook and needs to develop a full on Facebook Application (none of this Gigya confusion).
7. BONUS: iPhone app similar to Facebook’s telling me of my families happening.

Like Colin’s it added some flavor to the photo and am not all that mad.

<robertsandie> is a prefix I have been thinking about and is my #1 pick

#robertsandie was another one I thought about but am not really sure that’s the right solution for this (let me know thoughts).

The tool I am using is Twitter Updater by Victoria Chan.

Long live the blog!

If Google Reader implemented this, I would never leave and blog a whole lot more. Anyone else feel the same? Comment and let’s tell Google how we feel!

Techcrunch recently announced a free 36 hour read of Inside Facebook. Great idea, and after reading it found that they use TRAC as there source control and documentation system. I am a HUGE FAN of the opensource TRAC and the flexibility and control it offers with linkage to SVN.

It’s great to know that an opensource PM tool like TRAC is used in some of the most popular websites. Go TRAC!

technorati tags:opensource, project management, trac, facebook

https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom

Now if only Flock would only team up with bloglines, then I would have ultimate RSS usability.

technorati tags:rss, flock, gmail

Lately, I have wondered into a seemingly age-old question: PHP vs. Java. From my perspective Rapid Application Development has lead to PHP as a technology of choice for quickly getting sites up. On the other hand there is a real complaint that it is simply a scripting language. After doing some research found a couple commmon themes out there:

• PHP & Java Both Scale
• Java is complex – PHP can be complex but simpler to jump into
• Java & PHP both need to be planned out for larger websites
• PHP is much better for small websites
• Language Shootout says Java is Faster, PHP uses less memory.

At the end of the day, it seems that the underlying technology is simply a tool and should be focused on what your developers at hand are comfortable with.

References

• PHP vs Java IMHO
• OnJava: PHP Scalability
• Java versus PHP Shootout

technorati tags:java, php

I know this sounds like a horror movie, but I promise this event won’t be that scary. Schools like Berkeley are offering blogging journalism classes and we are not even RSS feeding our school newspaper!

Hope you can make it, look forwards to presenting.

Here is the what the flyer said:

Description of Presentation:
—————————
Are You?
Interested in boosting your portfolio and resume with a website presence?
Live far from home and want to share experiences with family back home?
Have something to say to the world?
Tired of simply posting to Webshots and ready to step it up?
Interested in how businesses are spreading informal communications via Business
blogs?

If you answered yes to any of these come join Robert Sandie, former Lehigh
Football Player, CSB student, macromedia employee, and a current Blogger as we have an informal, hands on discussion/presentation going over State of the Blog on 10/14.

This discussion pertains to business students, arts/science, and engineering
students alike.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Public Speaking , Journalism, Computer Science, Lehigh, Resume