Blogger

My experience with Blogger has been very positive so far, the interface is great and it basically works. Much easier then setting up your own. Adsense integration is easy as well, but I don't have much revenue. I have experienced problems uploading large movies, they don't make it clear what the size your video is and sometimes things just hang, because your are sending a file that is over 100 Meg. Sometimes it pays to paste into the HTML window, seems like it can drag lots of junk with a copy an paste into the compose tab, as I noticed with I copied:

Your blog can have up to 100 readers.

Which is what I am playing with now, I have a closed blog, that has subscribers, seems like a cool thing to play with, so I closed a blog, invited readers, although I have to say that the adoption rate has been pretty low. The blog has 5 authors, 4 subscribers and 12 open invitations, pretty poor performance, compared to the old numbers. Seems like you have an option to continue as a guest that lets you see the content, without affecting the numbers.

You'll need to sign in with a Google Account to confirm the invitation. If you don't have a Google Account yet, we'll show you how to get one in minutes, or you can view the blog as a guest for up to 30 days.

I will have to see if it gets any better after 30 days, probably not, I guess this is one more hurdle, that will diminish readership way below the numbers it used to get.

Lost bag

Neat little quote from 1837 I found on Crawling Road:

What has been, what ever must be, the consequence of such a sudden and prodigious inflation of the currency? Business stimulated to the most unhealthy activity; a vast amount of over production in the mechanick arts; a vast amount of speculation in property of every kind and name, at fictitious values; and finally, a vast and terrifick crash, when the treacherous and unsubstantial basis crumbles beneath the stupendous fabrick of credit, and the structure falls to the ground, burying in its ruins thousands who exulted in the fancied security of their elevation. Men, now-a-days, go to bed deeming themselves rich, and wake in the morning to find themselves stripped of even the little they really had. They count, deluded creatures! on the continued liberality of the banks, whose persuasive entreaties seduced them into the slippery paths of speculation. But they have now to learn that the banks cannot help them if they would, and would not if they could. They were free enough to lend their aid when assistance was not needed; but now, when it is indispensable to carry out the projects which would not have been undertaken but for the temptations they held forth, no further resources can be supplied. The banks must take care of themselves. “Charity begins at home.” The course of trade is turning against the country. We have purchased more commodities abroad than our products will pay for, and the balance will soon be called for in specie. The banks, which lately vied with one another in effusing their notes, are now as eager competitors in withdrawing them from circulation, and preparing for the anticipated shock. They have no time to listen to the prayers of the deluded men whom their deceitful lures seduced so far upon the treacherous sea of credit. They cast them adrift without remorse and leave them to encounter, unaided and unprepared, the fury of the gathering tempest. Or should, perchance, some tender hearted moneychanger relent, and consent to tow a few victims into harbour, is it unreasonable that he should charge wrecker’s fees for the service—half the cargo and twenty per cent commissions on the remainder? The cashiers of some of our banks can tell you that these are but the usual rates.

William Legget

December 10, 1837

So I guess we are in for inflation next, bugs me, what to buy? A house? Gold? Money can't be worth this much, it will loose value.

So I spent some time trying to contact lost baggage at United for Dan who left a camera on the plane, I didn't feel really qualified for this, but he was convinced that someone had to go to the terminal 7 at LAX and talk to the guy directly, I am sure that the reason they weren't getting back to him is they are too busy. In the end, I get an email from Dan telling me that it is all resolved, they did get back to him and asked for a FedEx account to ship his camera back to him, cool, I didn't have to go to the airport after all :) I thought that was a fools errand.

Skirball AAII

This morning rather rashly I decided to go to the AAII meting at the
Skirball, is an interesting talk well attended by many retired
individuals where they talk investing. The speakers was pretty
bullish on the housing market bouncing and the idea that we may have
reached a bottom. I tend to agree, I think our way out is inflation,
this means get rid of your money, buy something, a house, stocks or
gold. Second speaker talks about energy independence and taxes on gas
to get the price up to $4 again, very disruptive to the economy.

GPS

I am going to take he Tomtom GO 720 with me today on a walk, don't
know how to use it yet, but I see that http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/THE%20LoW/traces/192562
did a trace on it, so it must be possible. I also updated the
firmware on it, can't update the maps, seems they charge 48/year on
it, hmmm...

My answer, is here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/TomTom I have to
install something, will research further.

Obama

Last night we went to the Ruby meeting at AT&T Interactive, good location and good hacking session, although I didn't get much Ruby done. On the way there we saw the Obama motorcade coming south on the 110 on its way to Long Beach Airport. Amazing how much it takes to move a president, as the 3 of us were piled into a carpool.

Just heard there is a new Dominican movie, Sanky-Panky, got to watch.

Most popular searches

I was thinking how can I get the gap to fill on my 100 pay out with adsense and it dawned on me, what would I like to find on Google, it is an answer to my question. So maybe this is what Mahalo is about, but again, if I took the Google Hot Trends and answered those questions, I should be pretty high in the google SEO to drive traffic to my site. I will test this theory with a post on "natasha richardson ski accident" which is the most popular search right now as you can see by the graph it has already tappered off alot. Now what would cause something to spike like this? I would assume that many watch TV or listen to the radio while in front of a computer and decide to Google what they just heard. This would make traffic spike on those search terms for that moment. I kind of remember hearing about this very recently as well, probably on the news. So there are 2 collums, news articules and blog posts, will I make the second column and how high once I post? I will see. This is interesting stuff. I have been to a few SEO talks, but have to say that this is still interesting to play with. In a way it is actually logical, if you answer questions that people ask, you deserve to be found. Now why is Meg Oliver in the second place? I better keep an eye on Google Trends as I could have bought JAVA at a great price this morning, it went up 65% today, wow, IBM is rumered to buy Sun. This seems like a great way to make money, hmmm, forget the ad revenue on my blog, geez, this is far more lucrative. In fact I had some of those shares, made some already, but only recovering losses on the stock, what a dog it has been.

Google Voice, DTV

I finally got GoogleVoice and it is cool. They even gave me a buck in my account, which probably means it is over with the free phone calls I used to have, but so many things are neater then they were, probably worth it. Interface is just like gMail and voice transcription to SMS for voice mail, wow, better then visual voicemail, lol. Ribbit did this as well, wonder if they put that under neat. So much cool stuff going on in tech so much to learn.

I got my $40 coupons again for the DTV converter box, I have 2 devices in the house that will no longer work after June when the analog TV is stopping transmission, not that I really care that much, but hey free coupons, might as well keep them running. Googling found some good discussions on what to look for and evaluate on other blogs. I don't have to think about those here, but I do have to say that this program is going to put many into a bad solution just because the government is spending money on these crappy converter boxes. Mostly we could eliminate the coupon program and simply let the flurry of new electronics purchases stimulate the economy. I bet if they weren't pusing $40 into this converter box, people might be more inclined to convert old TVs by moding them and simply tossing them out and buying new ones that would be far more energy efficient and smaller, nicer HDTVs. Kind of sucks, this is why the first time I had a coupon in my hands I didn't use it. When you mess with free markets results are usually bad. I also managed to sell 2 devices that would have needed conversion on Amazon, before all this happened, sweet. I am up to 71 on my ads, seems like I might collect after all, but boy this blogging is not a money maker.

No Internet

Today I am disconnected from the internet, a very unusual thing for
me, haven't been disconnected for a long time, perhaps I will ask TWC
what specials they are running, after all now that I don't have the
service I would qualify for specials, but I am more likely to try
specials from ATT as I have never used them before and have one bill
with them already, which I want to lower, don't use the phone much if
I have internet connectivity. Now that I am disconnected and can't
get any death treats, I will have to work on the other unavoidable
thing everyone does, taxes. Well better get too it and start working
on it, 7am where are my stocks? Won't know didn't even tune into the
channel 4 to see what the general market direction was today, they
tend to have a stock minute close to opening time, 6:30am. I guess I
will walk to Havana this morning to send this and get all the stuff
that is out there. I can see from TV that the DOW is up 43 today, but
what a vacuum of info. Might walk down the street today and install a
directional antenna somewhere to beam it in my direction, won't last
long without internet. Don't have a phone either as a result. C is
going up lots today, I am online again, sweet, AMR sucks today, but
hey that is at least one good one, and I took away that darn limit
order at 2 bucks, that would have taken 20 cents from my profits,
sweet, thanks Pedro.

CNBC

John Stuart sure gave CNBC a bad wrap on his show, funny as it is, this is pretty much what people feel as well. I don't have cable TV anymore, mostly because I realize that CNBC was the list program I used to watch, but after this wipping, who cares what they say. It hasn't made me money, has it made you any? Can't wait to hear what the Mad Money Machine's podcast hast to say about this. Isn't the internet grand, I just looked at their Twitter: "Show 150 is up. I take on Stewart who took on Cramer http://bit.ly/ew5Ni Please subscribe using iTunes to get past episodes." But why do I say they, shurely one person couldn't do a better job at the financial markets then a whole corporation, but having been a GE investor, hmmm... I guess the market doesn't thing that GE did that great either they are in the toilet, price wise, although all is suddenly better, we rebounded a little, DOW is back at 7224 up from 6,872 but down from a 52 week high of 13,191, wow, Stuart is right, I should have been short, when I was told to be long, had I only done the opposite of what CNBC, Cramer and the rest told me. But now that it is out that they are a contrarian indicator, will that deminish its effectiveness? It all started when a friend pointed me to John Stuart, I started by reading about it in Yahoo.

Audacity of Hope

Stocks are going up this week, a very strange and unusual event, lately it has been all pessimism, and in fact it got so bad that it was a ray of hope, that perhaps we can finally bottom out. Some have called DOW 5K, but this has been a healthy bounce, which could be a bottom, but you have to remain skeptical. The best argument for it bouncing is that we are going to get inflation soon, this deflects the worry off of stocks or housing, inflation can cure low stock and housing prices. I bought some AMR and C this week.

OMGPOP

Love how OMGPOP points out how many hours have been wasted by each game. Had a good laugh with this NSFW inspirational poster site.

Been moving a futon out, gave it away, now have more space and closer to the floor furniture, should be safer for the little one.

I so often need a way to share a screen session, I have to link the best resource I found so far.

Job hunting

I am still looking for a SysAdmin job close to El Segundo. Yesterday I spoke to the city and got a pretty warm reception, even without an appointment or even knowing if there was a job available, turns out they are staffing 2, neat. Part time and full time, they didn't sound half bad either, interesting things to do. Even found they are security conscious. I do feel good about our city government after being in there.

So I discovered that Gigya is on Main St., they are an interesting startup, doing widgets, seems interesting, advertising on the internet is big business.

Been talking to Alberto at Value-Pharmacy about possible ways to put up the site on the cheap, I am still a bit distrustfull of the business model, he however has found a way to get a guy to code it for free in RubyOnRails, nice, well, free as in equity, but that shows how much I believe.

That picture was awsome, but did he, will he, probably never.

loose ends

I have to say I hadn't been to a doctor in a while and didn't get much out of it either, they want blood next, uck. Watched a cool podcast that Jerromy puts on with Andrew Hyde, the organizers of Startup Weekend. Still that neat flipant attitude of people who just seem to be trying things until they get something to work. The first Startup weekend they did in Los Angeles went very well, too bad we didn't sell the company as it could have been a complete sucess if we had. Unfortunatly we let it linger and eventually everyone left the project.

Aberto sends me this Money as Debt Video, which I had already seen, but it is rather interesting to get your head around the idea that money is now created as debt. It only works, because someone is going to work and pay it off plus interest. Eventually we have to create more debt to pay off that interest, because that is how you can get more money to pay it off, we are at 54 trillion in debt now, isn't that amazing.

Its over

But I haven't figured out why that man was up there, the news, didn't give me any hints. Maybe we will never know.

StartUp Weeked LA2 winding down

People are getting closer to completing their tasks, and the groups seem like they are closer to completing the tasks. The Non Profit budded heads, strong characters fell apart, but they are in this morning so still at it, Block Snap has is close to releasing, Cakester worked late last night, Comic Catalog actually had so many developers they finished it in Drupal and now want to merge the Rails component into it, Feng Shui-er ?, Parking Sublet AKA ShareMySpot is ready to have people play with it, PriceLine for Drinks and Eats worked late last night testing and finalizing details, Craig Sniper+Analytics is using .NET, and we got tons of Windows Vista stickers, thanks Woody.

This morning someone went in search of God? There is a naked man on top of a cross and many fire trucks below on La Brea and 8th they put down a soft inflatable bed for a a nice soft landing for him. I am not sure what he has to look forward to after coming down, but meanwhile seems to be quite content up there in the sun, might get sunburned.

Anyhow they present at 3PM and come on down VCs. It turned out that it is not Alex empowring himself up there. Although he applauded the guy for having the courage to climb he cross and express himself.