• Big Contact: Feed Player - Create My Shareable Podcast Player
  

  

  A Flash podcast player that you can instantly embed into your web site, blog or social network.

  Tags: podcast, player, mp3

A non-spam comment recently arrived on the old Boycott Sony site, which is something of a rarity these days. Reader PJ asks whether there is a known list of sites that are owned by Sony BMG, or Sony generally, so that he can block those sites for showing up in AdSense ads.

I don’t have such a list. Does anyone out there? I suspect that part of the issue may be that Sony Music/Sony BMG registers unique domains for its artists, meaning that blocking ads for them may turn into a game of whack-a-mole. But I’ll throw the question out to LazyWeb anyway.

Following up my initial LibraryThing report from yesterday, last night I exported my Delicious Library to text (necessary because the underlying XML file was bigger than the 2 MB limit for imports) and uploaded it to the service. In spite of being overloaded by WSJ and BoingBoing traffic, the site was responsive; it reported all the ISBNs that it was going to add to my library, told me how many others were already ahead of mine to look up, and said that it should be done in about 10 hours. It beat that estimate and had my catalog of books live by 8 am this morning—unfortunately, though it was only part of it, since I hit the 200-book limit that comes with free membership.

The UI is a dream. You can view your books as a list or a virtual “shelf” displaying all the covers (fans of Delicious Library will recognize this view). Clicking on a title in shelf view toggles some options—look up the book in Amazon, view your information about it, view the social information (tags, ratings, reviews, weighted recommendations), or edit the information. In addition to the obvious features (tags, etc.), editing the information provides one very useful function, the ability to change cover art to one of a dozen variant editions, to art provided by another user, or to upload your own cover art. Very slick.

Similarity is an interesting feature, as is the ability to browse to see who else has a book in their library. I also like the automated tag clouds, and my personal author cloud is telling (though, again, skewed by the fact that only part of my library is represented). I look forward to exploring some of the additional social networking features over time.

The bottom line is that just a day or two after its launch, LibraryThing is shaping up to be a really interesting way to explore books, authors, and other people’s reading habits. Fun!

Ten for February 22^nd

1. Crooked Fingers - Dignity & Shame  I think Crooked Fingers is the only band with multiple releases where I own every single one of their albums. Well, except for this one - I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet. Mark preordered and got an autographed copy. They play KEXP today. Stream the disc on the Merge site.
   
   
2. Enon - Lost Marbles and Exploded Evidence  Touch and Go's got a classy new website. They've got an MP3.
   
   
3. Jeff Hanson  Out on Kill Rock Stars. They've got an MP3.
   
   
4. Ida - Heart Like A River  Is Ida a Providence band? That's been confusing me lately. Their new disc is out on Polyvinyl. They've got an MP3.
   
   
5. Iron And Wine - Woman King  Check out Joe's review on 75 or Less. There's an MP3.
   
   
6. I ♥ Huckabees  
   
   
7. Karate - In The Fishtank  I had no idea this was being released. A nice suprise.
   
   
8. Mogwai - Government Commisions  Their live BBC material from the past few years.
   
   
9. Robbers On High Street - Tree City  
   
   
10. M. Ward - Transistor Radio  I've only heard a few tracks from the radio, but they were CRAZY good. Once again, you can stream the disc on Merge's site.

I've got a confession to make

Tiny Showcase launches March 1st, 2005. I hope you'll like it.

Five for February 15^th

• Camper Van Beethoven - Discotheque: Live Chicago  I'm not really sure why I chose this disc to link. Most of their stuff is available for download via archive.org.
  
  
• Dread Leppelin - Chickens And Ribs  I know the joke should be old by now, but it still cracks me up. It features a guest appearance by Billy Zoom.
  
  
• Mahi Mahi - Remove Your Body  This came out a few weeks ago and I forgot to mention it. I always bitch about the music scene in Providence, but when someone releases an album, I forget to write about it on the site. Sorry about that.
  
  
• They Might Be Giants - Here Come The ABCs  Speaking of children's music, have you seen the Pancake Mountain site? I've probably already linked it, but the Fiery Furnaces "Mouse House, Moose Hoose" clip is too crazy to not mention several times.
  
  
• Wedding Present - Take Fountain  I wanted this album to be absolutely amazing, but I'm having trouble getting into it. I'm gonna give it a few more tries - I can sense that there's some great material hidden in there.

For one thing, we're no longer owned by Microsoft, which for some reason seems to make it easier for us to build a site that works as well in Firefox and Safari as it does in Internet Explorer. And now that larger computer screens and broadband have become commonplace, we felt Slate could do more to take advantage of both. The new home page, for example, is wider than the old one and has graphics so numerous that a dial-up modem would have choked on them. We've used the additional real estate to give permanent homes to Explainer, the Has-Been, Doonesbury, Today's Pictures, and our editorial cartoons[~]regular features that have sometimes been hard to find.

Early this week, in an email to a coworker, I mentioned that I made music and pointed her to my site. On Thursday she wrote back and said “cool, you’re even on iTunes!” This surprised me; my two albums were submitted about 3 and 8 weeks ago and hadn’t shown up on iTunes as of Monday or so. But I looked, and indeed, there they both are on iTunes. For those of you who’ve heard the music, I’d appreciate a customer review. For those of you who haven’t, what are you waiting for? :-) Of course there are also old-fashioned shiny discs in plastic cases. Thanks!

Last modified: 24 June 2006, 19:18

There are currently 736,425 benchmarks in the database at geocaching.com. Overall, 82,517 benchmarks have been found and recorded in 114,528 logs. In the last 7 days, 1,007 benchmarks have been logged by 407 users. Four of them were found by me in Greentown, Pennsylvania near Exit 20 of Interstate 84.

I had tried to find a 1959 benchmark named "Burke" a couple of months ago. The eXplorist 600 indicated that I was within a half-mile of and then I realized I would have to trespass on private property to get to the mark -- something I do not do, at least on purpose. I saw a sign nearby labeled Robert Burke Consulting. Upon visiting his web site and seeing that he works with Linux, I concluded he must be a nice person and likely would not mind me giving him a call. Not only did he not mind, he offered to escort me to the benchmark -- he had noticed it in the past and knew right where it was. I met Bob and his four-year old son at his driveway and off we went in his four-wheel drive truck down a dirt road and off into a field. Turns out that Bob's father owns hundreds of acres of land where the benchmark is located. Five generations of his family have lived in Pennsylvania.

Turns out that there are actually four benchmarks (Burke, Burke 2, Burke Reference Mark 1, and Burke Reference Mark 2) all within a couple of hundred feet of each other. Three were placed in 1959 and one in 1967. The descriptions given are accurate for finding them -- but don't rely on lat/lon because those are not accurate. One of them was off by nearly 200 feet. Ater many a wild goose chase, I have learned that the best way to find benchmarks is to carefully read the datasheet. Here is a typical description for finding a reference mark...

REFERENCE MARK 1, A STANDARD DISK STAMPED BURKE NO 1 1959, IS CEMENTED IN A DRILL HOLE IN TOP OF A 2 X 3 FOOT BOULDER IRREGULAR IN SHAPE AND PROJECTING ABOUT 2 INCHES ABOVE THE SURFACE OF THE GROUND. IT IS 85.9 FEET SOUTHEAST OF AN 8-INCH TRIANGULAR BLAZED MAPLE TREE, 72.8 FEET SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF A STANDARD METAL WITNESS POST AND MARKER, 37 FEET SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF THE CENTER OF A TRACK ROAD AND THE MARK IS ABOUT THE SAME ELEVATION AS THE STATION

The disks were all readable, although there is some corrosion. All are in plain view and the main mark (Burke) has a witness post. If you ever noticed a 3-4 foot long orange stick in the ground with some wording on it, that would be a witness post. It says basically, there is a benchmark nearby and don't mess with it! The marks would have been useful to surveyors and civil engineers decades ago, but with the advent of inexpensive and accurate GPS devices, they have become unnecessary. In spite of this, they are fun to find -- 72 for me so far and only three-quarters of a million or so to go! Lastly, remember the Honda ads from years ago -- "You meet the nicest people on a Honda"? Well, this past weekend I discovered the same thing about looking for benchmarks. If you need any systems or Linux consulting in the northeast Pennsylvania area, pay a visit to Robert Burke Consulting.

Other patrickWeb stories about benchmarking

Last month I got an email from Nora Barnes who is a professor of marketing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She said she was conducting the first academic study about blogging and wanted my input, which would be combined with that of dozens of others. Her goad was to report on what motivates bloggers, how they handle legal and ethical issues, and how blogs have helped promote their businesses or points of view.

This morning Dr. Barnes reported that her blog study is now finished and up on the UMD Center for Marketing Research web site. The report is in pdf format and you can find it here. Nora's study takes the emotion out of the subject and adds some substantive research and a great deal of insight. She said that what started out as "just another researcher trying to study something interesting" revealed what makes bloggers "different from those of us watching (reading)". I am certain her report will be quite valuable to institutions of all kinds who have not yet gotten their blogging strategy to the level they want.

Other patrickWeb stories about blogging
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One of the many innovations Sam Palmisano has spearheaded at IBM is the idea of reaching out to "alumni". The first initiative was a few years ago when he started a semi-annual reception for executives and former executives of the company. That was just the beginning and now the idea of reaching out has been opened up big time. The number of past and present IBMers is probably close to a million people. Establishing communications with such a huge base can be nothing but a good thing for the company.

When I left engineering school and joined IBM in 1967, it was common to look for a job at a company and expect to stay there your entire career. Nobody thinks that way anymore. If you tell someone you were with a company for decades, they might ask "what's the matter, couldn't you find any other jobs?". Another change is in the old days if someone left the company they were considered a traitor and barred from coming back. Today, there are many executives that left the company at some point, got some experience at one or more other companies, and then brought that experience back into IBM.

The Internet has enabled everything to be connected to everything, so setting up a blog to "connect" past, present, (and maybe future) IBMers to each other and with the company seems like a very good idea. The The first step was the Google Group, the logical step two is the new Greater IBM blog. Over time other forms of web technology such as wikis, audio and video podcasts, instant messaging, and various mobile technologies will likely enter the mix.

The possibilities are endless -- collaboration on projects, personal networking for jobs and deals, referrals to and from IBM, and social networking for the fun of it. I look forward to being part of this as it evolves. Upon e-tirement in 2001 with nearly four decades at IBM, I don't really feel like I left anyway! Feel free to visit patrickWeb. There are a number of categories that I have been writing about for more than ten years. Things related to IBM are at this site, I am sure I will be writing about and linking to the Greater IBM blog as will others. Cross linking will increase the overall "connectedness". That's what the web is all about. I am really proud that IBM is taking the blogosphere so seriously.

Greater IBM Blog
Greater IBM on Google Groups
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This week I attended an IBM software technology briefing about SOA. Only brilliant technical people could come up with SOA as a name for something. Let's see, is it safe operating area, School of the Americas, Skies of Arcadia (a Nintendo game), Society of Actuaries, state of the art, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? Nope. Maybe it is about an architectural firm that has great customer service? Or maybe it is about the architecture of a building that has a good service entrance? Neither. The SOA of the briefing stands for "service oriented architecture". It is really important. The wikipedia has a comprehensive definition of SOA but basically it is about a new way to get things done with software. Actually it is isn't new -- the idea has been around for decades -- but now it is really happening. It is so much a part of the vernacular at IBM that they just matter of factly call it "so a". After an IBM briefing about "virtualization" a year ago, I tried to explain the word in simple terms (see Virtually Real or Really Virtual). I'll try that approach here with SOA.

In a nutshell, SOA will allow web sites to do much more than “click here to buy”. In fact web sites built with SOA will result in us standing in fewer lines in the physical world and have to endure fewer telephone call centers that want to control us. Fulfillment models at our favorite retailer’s web site will result in the staple goods we need just showing up outside the garage door when we need them. If businesses have the right attitude, SOA will enable them to get closer to the ultimate Internet -- to build a people-oriented and user-friendly integrated experience for all parties involved - employees on the intranet, suppliers, customers, partners, analysts and prospective constituents. There is more to this story. (read more)

At a speech in New Orleans on Monday I said we were just five percent of the way into the Internet -- that of all the things that could simplify our lives and save us time, only five percent of them are here so far. New companies such as Pandora are pressing the envelope to do great things but unfortunately many existing companies have not kept pace with expectations.

This morning I checked on the status of a medical prescription at Express Scripts, my "online" pharmacy. The web site had an order number but did not show the name of the medication. Clicking on "check status" gave a line that said "In pharmacy" -- since May 6. No information available. Sending an email to them is hopeless -- I have done it before -- they respond to the email by telling you to call if you need information. I called and was told they had received the prescription on May 3 and it then takes them three days to enter it into the system. Four days later they determined that it needs "prior authorization" and so they faxed a form to the doctor requesting that he fax a form to the insurance company who would then need to fax a form to customer service who would then notify the pharmacy it is ok to ship the medication. The pharmacy and customer service are the same company. There is no feedback to the customer at any point. Meanwhile everyone is calling everyone and the doctor's office is so overloaded with calls about prescriptions that you can't get through to them. This is the status of online pharmacy. Five percent would be an overstatement.

Then I made a reservation at Marriott.com. At the end of the form was a "comments" box and I entered some things that I thought would be helpful. Upon hitting the submit button I got an error message saying "Comments too long". The form only accepts 45 characters -- a ridiculous limitation in these days of inexpensive storage. Well designed online forms that limit the text input tell you how many characters you have remaining. Not this one -- there is no indication given of how many characters have actually been entered and the text box actually has four lines of 64 characters each. You just keep shortening and entering submit until it is satisfied. What could they be thinking? The confirming email arrived quickly but because they had embedded some javascript in the email to make it look pretty, it could not be printed. Travel sites generally are getting better but they still do a lot of dumb things.

The point that top management of these and many other companies are missing is that the perception of their company and their brand is no longer based on their past history or even the reputation of their products and services. The way we see them is the way we see their web sites. Unfortunately, a lot of things we see are not pretty. Increasingly our loyalties will shift to the companies who make our lives simpler and save us time instead of frustrating us. Many are trying hard but they have a long way to go.

After finding four official National Geodetic Survey benchmarks during an interesting walk around downtown New Orleans, it was time to meet at Antoine's for dinner. The famous restaurant has been continuously operated by the same family since 1840. Through wars, the Great Depression, epidemics and storms, the culinary treasures continue to be served. The French Quarter, where the restaurant operates, was fortunate to not have any water damage, although the winds took a toll and repairs are still underway. After dinner, my son and his friends headed for the music they wanted to hear. For me, there was only one place I had in mind.

I had not been to Preservation Hall for more than thirty years but I remembered exactly what to expect. The sound of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is unique and inspiring. The musicians are polished and professional. I talked with the trombone player during break and he told me he was a professor of music at a local college. To hear him and his colleagues play you would never see a piece of music. It seemed to come from their soul. The saxophone player told me he read music when he was a boy but that now it comes from the soul. From their web site are a coupe of great quotes. "Musicians in New Orleans are born to entertain. There's nothing wrong with that, because I'm happy when I play. I love what I do". "We play gospel music here. We play old spirituals. We play military marches. There's no end to the variety of music that we play. But we play it all our way. And the more we play, the more the level of happiness rises. Just to watch our audiences go wow when we play, that gives me a good feeling and makes me want to put out more."

The amazing part to me is the coordination. There is no sheet music, no conductor, not even subtle leads from one of the members. All seven -- trumpet, two trombones, tuba, drum, tenor saxophone, and piano -- played as one. Soloists knew when to stand -- at times several would stand -- the crescendos and decrescendos were perfect and soft harmonies were flawless. These are truly great musicians. Walking a half mile down Bourbon Street back to the hotel there were dozens of "bands" playing at peak volume. It was a different world than Preservation Hall. I prefer the latter.

After Sunday brunch overlooking the mighty Mississippi River, it was time to head for JazzFest. The temperature was 90, the humidity was 100%, the crowd was 100K+ and there was no place to sit. In spite of this it was a great experience. The Paul Simon performance, in particular, was worth the price. Nice to see the 60+ performers -- he was amazing in every respect. Digital music is great but nothing compares to a live concert. The big screen made you feel like you were in the front row (even though there were no chairs). Regrettably, Fats Domino (78 years old) cancelled at the last minute for health reasons. Lionel Richie took took the stage instead.

On Monday morning it was a pleasure to make a presentation to a group of networking and IT executives at the English Turn Country Club. The topic was, guess what, the future of the Internet. With the incredible humidity, I do not regret not being a golfer and staying for the afternoon.

With regard to New Orleans,I found a mixed story. The water marks, damage, and debris were staggering. One can see why a huge number of people have been displaced and why housing is the main issue on many people's minds. I spoke to a number of residents who were working in the service industry. The common thread was that they were hopeful, courteous, and wore smiles on their faces even though they had every reason to be bitter. One person told me there was three feet of water in the second story of his house. He and his family moved in with a cousin -- eight people in a small home. The only good news is that there are plenty of jobs. The biggest tragedy may be that there are only five schools open in a city that was once more than a million people.

The month of April had the normal slew of announcements in hardware, software, services, acquisitions, and corporate initiatives. Being "tax" month, the company announced a new solution for optimizing tax auditing. IBM's Tax Audit and Compliance Solution uses advanced analytics to help revenue agencies zero in on questionable tax returns.

There was also a milestone in April. Ten years ago, IBM WebSphere Commerce -- then known as Net.Commerce -- made its debut at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Thousands of customers later, WebSphere Commerce is one of the best-selling e-commerce applications on the market, running many of the world's top e-commerce sites. Most of the top 100 online retailers use the middleware to power their Web sites that generate billions of dollars of online revenues. I am sure some will say it was great planning, but those of us who were there at the time know that the "ticket server" for the Olympic Games was an experiment. At about $5m in ticket sales it turned out to be the largest e-commerce site on the web at the time. The first real customer was L.L. Bean, Inc. of Freeport, Maine. See the complete history of Websphere Commerce here.

Here are the announcements made by the company during the month. The complete index of prior IBM Happenings is here.