I’m a strong believer in taking time out to relax, refresh and regenerate. Traditionally we have done most of this R&R time during July, but we only got away for a day and a half to Ocean Shores earlier in the month and that wasn’t nearly enough to bring the batteries back to full power.

So it’s now time for my wife and I to skip town for more significant rest and relaxation. When it came time to pack a computer we both looked at each other and shook our heads. No Tablet PC, no laptop, no pocket PC. Really, what kind of vacation is it with a geek bag in tow?

Not sure exactly how long we will be gone, but readers have a few different options if this blog seems a little skeleton-like for a little bit:

1) discover some other blogs not in vacation mode
2) search and scour the Hmm archives. Gold in them thar hills.
3) take a vacation yourselves. Hey, you deserve it.

For this coming Thursday I have scheduled one post to appear that I had intended to be published today. Fellow bloggers wondering how they might get some of their favorite blogger’s attention hopefully will find that useful. I thought about scheduling more unpublished posts to appear in the days that we’re gone but ultimately decided against it this time. I decided a break in the flow for readers once in awhile might be appreciated. Please let me know in the comments if the next time we plan to leave if you would like me to schedule more posts. I have plenty that could be used for downtime if readers want me to use them. Heaven knows my eyes are tired, at least some of your eyes must be too.

It could be a little while before there is another new post after the one Thursday unless we see some irresistable deal on a new computer (buy a computer on vacation? Say it isn’t so!), so let me take this time to thank all of you for reading, subscribing and supporting this blog and in particular my daily writings.

There also won’t be a Hmmcast this coming Friday. We’ll cover both weeks of posts here on August 11 or August 18th should our vacation span longer.

As we embark on this vacation, MakeYouGoHmm.com is currently enjoying some of its best daily average traffic numbers ever, this year comfortably ahead of prior years so far to date and looking to be the best ever for traffic and ad revenue. You can follow the third party site meter stats by clicking on the home page. We’ve always shared these numbers. Subscriber numbers are up too and, well, life is good here.

I should confess that we’re not going to be completely geekless on this trip. The digital camera is going and we have our eyes set on a new video camera that we might pick up along the way.

Now off to star in our own movie without Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The one without the geek toys.

I’m inherently bad about regularly creating and using to do lists. Not that I don’t think they are useful, they are, but they only seem to work for me when I have a lot of things to do in a short period of time. It’s not something I do regularly. Today being one of those days where a todo list made good sense I decided to reach out for the nearest to do list application.

I could have installed a to-do widget on the Tablet PC (I’m using a couple Y! Widgets on there now: MLB score tracker and weather), but it was faster and easier to use the Google homepage to do list module (pictured above). Within a minute I was adding todo list entries to my Google homepage.

Knowing todo lists are a recurring theme at Lifehacker (and feeling a little guilty for taking the easy way out) I decided to search their archives to see what else was out there. I remember reviewing Ta-da list awhile back and that one was out despite having RSS feeds for the list and an easy to use model.

To do Tracker (Dashboard Widget, Mac) is one of the best looking todo list tools I’ve seen.

Lastly, I started thinking about to-do lists on my Pocket PC, the most portable device I currently use. It stores my addresses and encrypted passwords. Was there a good program for managing to-do lists that also syncs with desktop? Off to Handango I went. Check List Pro ($18.99) looks good. Any readers with experience with this or another Pocket PC apps with desktop sync? This would be my preference over something web based or computer specific.

Desktop only
Pros - no internet connection required, local or external backup possibilities
Cons - tied to one computer, only portable if on a laptop or tablet PC

Web-based only
Pros - access from any where, any computer, no need to carry equipment around
Cons - internet connection required, backup data locally (export function?)

PDA with Desktop
Pros - backup on portable device and desktop with external backup optional, no internet required
Cons - having to carry a device physically around

I didn’t list smart phones and Blackberry and Treo could fit under PDA. Being able to ink to-do list items is also missing. While writing with a stylus on the Pocket PC is better than using a mouse, it doesn’t compare to using a good pen on the tablet. What else am I missing and/or not considering here?

Citizen reporters can now send CNN breaking news with an I-Report. The form is powered by blip.tv. Pictures and video from cellphones can be emailed to ireport@cnn.com.

CNN has solicited user-generated content before, but only for specific news events and without designating an area of its Web site for file uploads. All submissions–or “I-Reports,” as the network is dubbing them–will be considered for possible use on CNN’s TV and online news reports.

Files and formats
Photos (JPG, GIF): Max size 1MB
Video (”most types accepted”): Max size 30MB
Audio (”MP3, WAV, AIFF): Max size 1MB

Content restrictions
- No pictures of minors without written consent (good luck getting that on the scene)
- I-Report not allowed for use by CNN employees
- You grant CNN:

… a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide license to edit, telecast, rerun, reproduce, use, syndicate, license, print, sublicense, distribute and otherwise exhibit the materials you submit, or any portion thereof, as incorporated in any of CNN’s programming or the promotion thereof, in any manner and in any medium or forum, whether now known or hereafter devised, without payment to you or any third party

My thoughts
This is the logical evolution of citizen generated news. Note that I’m avoiding the more derogatory term “user generated content” which suggests the reality: people being used. It will be interesting to see how many of these submitted I-Reports are actually used and to what degree by CNN.

Missing from the I-Report form is any sort of URL as a credit source. This is too bad because it would give citizen journalists the ability to blog their news and then submit to CNN for possible link credit on TV. It’s a one way deal for CNN and very typical for mainstream news. If a blogger or citizen journalist quotes their content a link is usually given, but vice versa there doesn’t seem to be any consideration.

While I’m encouraged by this move, it’s unfortunate CNN doesn’t feel that citizens submitting material that they use on air shouldn’t be compensated in any way, even if it’s only T-shirts, coffee cups or something non-monetary. Maybe that will be coming in I-Report v2.0.

jottings lists the 100 oldest registered domains. Here are the 10 oldest:

1. 15-Mar-1985 SYMBOLICS.COM
2. 24-Apr-1985 BBN.COM
3. 24-May-1985 THINK.COM
4. 11-Jul-1985 MCC.COM
5. 30-Sep-1985 DEC.COM
6. 07-Nov-1985 NORTHROP.COM
7. 09-Jan-1986 XEROX.COM
8. 17-Jan-1986 SRI.COM
9. 03-Mar-1986 HP.COM
10. 05-Mar-1986 BELLCORE.COM

The very first domain registered was on April 24, 1985 March 15, 1985 and #100 was on November 30, 1987, a full two plus years later. This led me to the following Hmm:

Currently how many domains are registered a day, minute, second?
The site domaintools.com lists stats (pictured atop) showing 419,367 per day in .com new domains are registered. It’s well known that .com is by far the most popular registered domain, which leads to a discussion why bother registering any other TLD? Using the domaintools.com stats — and I don’t know how accurate these stats are (please provide correction in the comments if you know of a better source) — we learn:

486,121 / 24 hours
= 20,255 per hour / 60 minutes
= 337.58 per minute / 60 seconds
= 5.62 domains registered every second

Yikes, it took me almost the whole weekend to get caught up with the items in my RSS Reader. Are you prone to these RSS lag periods? My wife and I are starting to get the feeling it’s time to go for an away from keyboard and kids (AFKK) experience. Maybe tomorrow or Tuesday. We haven’t taken any significant vacation time out for ourselves in awhile. We’re both feeling it. It’s time.

Hmmitorial note: This will be the first week (ever, I think) that two Hmm quickies have been posted the same week. If this is your first one then these are typically posts that cover many different things where I only have brief commentary to add.

To better automate the cycle, I could be using del.icio.us with a Wordpress plugin like many others are doing, but:

1) I don’t use del.icio.us for bookmarking that often
2) I prefer to keep notes while I’m reading in a single post window and if I have enough content to make a full post from an item/link/news, then I’ll copy that info to a new post and get to it.
3) I don’t like jamming posts that are too automated-looking in front of readers. I like to read and write original content, or at the very least content with an original or creative slant.
4) Lastly, those del.icio.us add-in posts in Wordpress all look the same with the “Links from date” format.

If I was going to use the delicious/Wordpress plugin then I’d want to hack up the output so it was different or unique If you are a blogger reading that uses the plugin please consider modding the output and making the format of your del.icio.us bookmarked links unique. With a sea of blogs and bloggers out there, it’s important to strive to be original/unique. Some minor output customization can show you took the time to be different for your readers. It will also help readers visually remember your site over others who used the same format rolling across their RSS reader.

Normally you won’t get my extra commentary in front of these Hmm quickies posts. If you should not care to see these type posts, no problem, you can create a feed without them using something like Feed Rinse and filtering the words “hmm quickies.” Bye bye Hmm quickies. However, since this is the 35th Hmm quickies in over three years, you can rest assured I won’t be doing these too often. I kind of see these type posts as appetizers instead of main courses.

Anyway, probably could have expanded more on a few of these but sometimes brevity is the better choice, enough of hmmitorializing, let’s get it on, Mills Lane style:

- No more E3? Could be according to next-gen.biz, that claims the major vendors aren’t getting enough return for their investment. There are too many tech/game/blog conferences these days.

- Want an aquarium but tight on space in your pad? Fish ‘n Flush ($450) to the rescue.
- another spoiled actress, Lindsay Lohan, slammed by exec over her actions during the filming of Georgia Rule
- Mel Gibson goes to Mad Max-imum of the DUI limit and then does something very unhollywood as Cinematical notes by making a statement saying his actions that night were despicable. Respect for owning up to mistake. Good thing nobody got hurt. Doesn’t always turn out that way with DUI.
- Yet another reason not to use a TypePad hosted blog: censorship. In the past I’ve had problems with TypePad not allowing me to comment on my own TypePad blog (the issue was ultimately resolved).
- iScoot allows calling your online Skype contacts from your cell phone.
- And should one ever need to fake a phone call, just check out popularity dialer.

If you’d like to read more of these type posts, just do a search for Hmm quickies.

Thankfully, the Bush White House era will end someday and now you can add a countdown to your website/blog, download a screensaver for Windows or Mac. There’s even a Mac Dashboard Widget to countdown to the occasion.

Of course if Jeb Bush should get elected in 2008 (please God, no), then George’s name will need to be swapped for his brother and more time added to the clock.

Thanks Digg.

Boing Boing has pictures of another Dell laptop that burns up in an office (source: Tom’s Hardware forum post)

Ouch, Dell, maybe you should start offering to pay the Fire Department service charges with every laptop you sell? My son is currently in the market for a laptop and there are two vendors we won’t be buying from: Sony and now, Dell. I don’t want to be treating him for burns like we had to do with our other son over his recent fireworks-related burns.

Microsoft already does some annoying things involving money with beta testers. For one, they 1099 you for the software they “pay” you for your time to drive up there and beta test their products on site. Didn’t know that? Now you do. Naturally they write off the software they pay beta testers in, so to be in compliance with the IRS they need to 1099 the beta testers. This only applies to those beta testers who receive more than $600 USD worth of software in a calendar year which is easy to do if you take programs like Office for your payment. It doesn’t seem very sensible for a beta tester to spend 2-4+ hours beta testing and take the latest Xbox 360 game ($50-60USD) as payment for the time, although I’ve seen several who do.

Now enter the idea that Microsoft is now going to charge $1.50 for each Office beta downloads. Warner is being nicer than I will be about the plan:

Now, I’m sure there are valid issues for this. As I recall Microsoft claims the demand almost brought down the Internet when they publicly released the Beta of both Vista and Office 2007(still resisting.) But this just seems silly to me. I wonder if we have to pass through the WGA barriers before they will aceept our $1.50.

No, I won’t be paying $1.50 to download and then offer free helpful information to Microsoft. They should be paying me $1.50 (at least) to download and give them advice/feedback. I know their bandwidth charges are high, boo hoo, that’s a cost of doing business. Maybe they should start their own eBay auctions for special beta invites to their program?

As a matter of personal protest to this move, I just uninstalled their smiley feedback system. They probably won’t care. I’ll just be another shrill voice on a blog. Nevermind the fact our company spends thousands on their software every year, a practice which I’m becoming less and less excited about doing.

From a negative publicity standpoint, this is a brilliant move. Maybe that’s what it’s really about. They want to have a bunch of people talk about how stupid this is so they can come out and say they listened to the wisdom of the crowd and won’t be charging. If so, they got me.

For every right thing Microsoft does, they seem to do at least two or three things that are really dumb. Log this is under the dumb column.

It’s difficult to tell from a video if something will be as good as it looks but Live Labs is working on something called Photosynth that looks extremely useful — if it works.

The idea is that it can take a picture snapped and then form in a 3D space on your desktop other nearby, related pictures around that picture. So imagine you take a picture of the Space Needle in Seattle then Photosynth will relate and serve up photos taken by others to show you the surrounding areas in a panoramic-like view. Wow, now that would be a next generation visual search engine.

Yahoo has a trip planning feature which combines maps so you can create and share fun things to do while on vacation. Imagine Photosynth with Virtual Earth as a competing program? Talk about virtual travel agent wet dreams.

Again, all this with the caveat: if it works. If it does, watch out, this will be hot.

Download Hmmcast #18 (mp3)

Most Hmm-worthy posts from July 22 - July 28, 2006
- Microsoft names it Zune (**7) [july 22]
- Families more fragmented these days? (**5) [july 23]
- Washington most “no religion” state according to poll (**6) [july 23]
- Vonage out, Skype back IN/OUT (2) [july 24]
- *Look more forward than back, two million in the distance (**10) [july 25]
- Keeping count of the published and unpublished words on your Wordpress blog (3) [july 25]
- Calacanis plays limp personal attack card against Kevin Rose (10) [july 26]
- Second Life to Real Life business intersections (0) [july 28]

This week historical news events
- Google launches an open source code area, sniffing sourceforge territory
- Kazaa settles with RIAA for $115 million, they will go legit
- Monopoly plans to dump cash for plastic
- Sticker invented that indicates how ripe fruit and vegetables are
- IE7 to be pushed out via automatic update, but Microsoft will offer a way to stop this for networks
- Skype video for Mac released

**Comments by
Will, Mike from Cyprus, thatedeguy, Mike, Matthew Bennett

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Duration: 7:13