Check out the Business 2.0 article on Dwell pre-fab homes and chances are good that you’ll be as impressed as I was. The quality and finish of the Dwell homes make me want to go buy some property and spec one of these houses.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Consumer online back-up by Carbonite
Jeremy Wright interviews the CEO of Carbonite to find out about their consumer back-up service. Here’s my favorite quote from the interview:
Our slogan is “Backup for Everyone.” We will back up your whole PC for less than $5/mo, no matter how much data you have. And it is simple. One-click install, then it just works quietly in the background any time you’re connected to the Internet. When the little Carbonite lock icon on your PC’s system tray is green, it means that you’re completely backed up.
Love the business model — quality pricing and ease of use are always attractive.
Luxury leasing
Companies are spending lots of money leasing luxury items for various different lengths or time, including single day leases. Get out of your head that only cars can be leased because there are all kinds of luxury goods producers that are setting up lease terms.
Check out the full article on MSNBC.
Licensing great ideas and understanding real creativity
If you get paid to attend lots of meetings, follow this advice
Please read this advice from Seth Godin.
Hotel room motion detectors
I was staying at a hotel in Houston and noticed that there was an infrared motion detector (one that looks exactly like the kind installed with most standard security systems) on the wall. It took my a little bit of pondering to figure out the purpose. Do you know what it does?
It turns the air conditioner on and off. That probably saves the hotel a bunch of money in electricity costs, which is great for them. My question: Why they couldn’t they make the sensor blend in so that I didn’t have to see it?
The Virtual Handshake -- free PDF
I’ve read it and it is very worth checking out if you have any interest at all in business networking.
Do you believe the stock market is rigged?
Mark Cuban doesn’t and neither do I. However, I would like to echo Cuban’s sentiments in case you don’t read his blog regularly:
Is a single research pen mightier than the P&L, Balance Sheet and Statement of Cash Flows? that is the question you must ask yourself.
If you think the answer is yes, and you are an investor, you probably don't know enough about the companies you own stock in to stay in the market.
If you think the answer is yes, and you are a trader, hopefully you have gotten to the point of knowing you are just winging it anyway, and you win some and lose some.
If you are the CEO of a public company and you think the answer is yes. Please email me with the stock symbol of your company. I want to short it.
Have you ever had to hang drywall on a ceiling?
It’s a big pain in the ass, so I was excited to see this post on Cool Tools about drywall cleats. Essentially once you get one piece of drywall up you can screw the cleats to the edges of the drywall where you want to put the next piece and use the edge of the cleat to hold the next pieces while you screw them in.
Amazon S3
The true power of Amazon S3 for consumers will be fully realized when people start programming scripts and front-ends that use Amazon’s very cheap storage solution for the back-end. Russell Beattie reports that there are already people out there writing python scripts to store Flickr photos. I’d love to have some sort of basic front-end that would allow me to back up anything onto Amazon’s service — it wouldn’t need to be too sophisticated, although drag and drop would be a nice feature.
Link — python script for Flickr photos
.mobi
Russell Beattie has a long post about the “.mobi” domain. I personally think that .mobi is a great idea because so many mobile site addresses are so damn confusing (see some of the examples on Russell’s post).
The .mobi domain launches May 2006 with an early registration for trademark holders. If you own a trademark you may want to think about jumping on this before someone else starts snatching up these domains.
Link — .mobi
Link — Russell’s post
Here's a scary thought -- knives the shape and size of credit cards
Read all about it at DefenseTech.
What happens when you create a web advertising component and don't control it?
No need to ask Chevrolet because I’m happy to show you all kinds of examples of how users are generating content that is the exact opposite (I’m sure) of what Chevrolet was hoping for. The 3rd link below on Fourboros has screenshots just in case Chevy start censoring.
Pay attention to Latino blogs
Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the population in the United States, so it would seem to make sense that you would want to round out your blog subscriptions with some Latino-focused and/or Latino-authored blogs. Luckily this post on HispanicTrending provides a link to Josue Sierra’s compilation of Top Latino blogs.
Check it out.
I hate group e-mails, so I was excited to hear about 9cays
I first read about 9cays on TechCrunch and I’ve played around with the unregistered part of the service (instant conversation with 3 people, no sign-up required); I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with the interface. I really need to register to explore more of the functionality, but I just haven’t had a chance. The only things that give me pause about this service are:
- No password-protected conversations (yet)
- Can’t find the Privacy Policy
Check it out.
Lots of buzz about Orb
Orb is a free alternative to the SlingBox, but is a software solution rather than a combined hardware and software solution like SlingBox. I’ve played around a lot with the Sling device and have to say that I have been very impressed even though it costs around $250. Also, the Sling device is platform-independent whereas Orb is only available right now for Windows XP and all of my home equipment is Macintosh.
Anyway, check it out if your home system is Windows XP and you’re looking for a free remote media streaming solution.
Competition for Zillow
I wrote about Zillow several weeks ago when it launched. Now Real Estate ABC has launched as Zillow’s competition. I ran a few comparative searches on both services of the property I own and properties I have owned and the results are different — I would recommend using both together as a resource when buying and selling a home.
Holy crap I've been busy
I’ve taken over some new job duties and between that and travel, I have had enough time to even think about blogging. However, I have been reading blog posts when I have gotten time and now that I’ve got a few minutes on a weekend, I’m going to start cleaning out my store-up topics.
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