This odor-eating bacteria researchers found is called methylotrophic bacteria, according to Science Daily:

Researchers have isolated bacteria which can grow on and ‘mop up’ smelly compounds in the mouth that are linked to bad breath. These smelly, highly reactive ‘one-carbon’ compounds are naturally produced from the breakdown of sulphur-containing amino acids in the mouth.

We bought some anti-odor foot aerosol spray for our gym shoes. After we work out I spray those bad boys. Still doesn’t seem to do a huge amount of good. Maybe it’s time to harvest some bacteria!

The Google Talk webpage is live (shown above) so get your download and check it out. Installation was painless and trouble-free.

Interface is a bit bare bones at the moment. I had Jowl download so we could run a quick demo. Note the presence of “beta” in the picture below. I noticed that it immediately started checking my Gmail inbox and popping a nice balloon above the system tray with the incoming messages (see bottom of screenshot below):

At first neither Jowl or I could get any sound with our VoIP call, but after some repeated callbacks (no changes to microphone/record settings on either end) we finally got sound with a connection.

We were able to chat in the window while talking. The sound broke up intermittently while I was using FTP and then got itself back together. I noticed some rather severe system slowdown issues after a minute or two of chatting and the audio broke up again (server issues?). The sound turned to constant breakup. Wasn’t a bandwidth crunch on our end as the pipe was rocking along. All in all, sound quality was very good and on par with Skype when it worked. It’s very early beta so I’m sure it will get better, but the first test wasn’t all that positive.

I’m sure once Google works out the scaling on this stuff it will be much smoother but right now I wouldn’t expect it to compare to Skype. A lot of features in Skype aren’t present like dial a POTS line or SkypeIN (calling from voice to a phone number), voicemail, conference calling, etc — all features Google Talk will need to add to become a real contender in this space long term, but they are off to an OK start. Also what about an API? Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m being impatient, it just got released! But these are things other folks will compare it to. Beta doesn’t mean what it used to mean. People expect more from any public release.

Google Talk “it’s live” posts continue to make the blog rounds, complete with various people saying they can connect to talk.google.com via Jabber. I tried with GAIM a little bit ago and am getting a 405 not allowed error, but others are reporting successful communication like Niall Kennedy, Phil Torrone, Matt, commenters and more. Best early coverage I’ve seen so far is from Download Squad who have a Google Talk review complete with screenshots:

Here’s a quick run-down of what Google Talk has to offer: Basic IM capabilities, high-quality and easy to use VoIP, complete integration with Gmail, and a simple, ads-free interface. Read on for our preliminary review and a glimpse into Google Talk’s future.

So they aren’t leaving out the VoIP, smart. I’m sure there will be much more on this tomorrow all over the web when it’s (supposed to be) available to the masses. Hopefully it’s not some lame, elitist invite-only deal.

Update 8:57pm PST: It’s live! Download Google Talk

Listening to KIRO 710 and Dori Monson has a superintendent from an Arizona public high school that replaced all textbooks with an iBook issued to each student. The cost of the textbooks per student per year was $500 and the price of the iBook was $800. They used the textbook money and money for the computer lab to help buy these computers. The whole school is wired with some 100+ airports so the students can get WiFi access anywhere on campus.

This makes a lot of sense to me, I wish I went to Empire High in Arizona! I suspect the days of this coming to many more public schools are not far off. Many other school districts, I’m sure, will be watching how this experiment goes. There are 340 students at Empire High.

A little Googling sent me to the following story from Macworld Daily News:

This makes the school the first US public school to shun printed books, notes Associated Press. The school describes itself as forward-thinking and ready to take risks with technology in education.

The first caller to the show liked the idea too but was concerned about security and maintenance. That’s a legitimitate worry as ripping off a textbook is much less a concern than a shiny, white iBook. Dori didn’t ask the superintendent how they planned to deal with maintenance. Wonder how many backup laptops they purchased and what kind of theft plan they have for the students? Or if this was something the parents would need to replace (more likely)?

I imagine during tests those laptops are powered down, otherwise how to stop cheating via IM between students? Certainly there are issues to work out, but overall, I think this is the future.

Oh, and the Superintendent was careful to note that the library is still well stocked with good, old fashioned books.

Too bad Tanya and Jim don’t have their own domain for the Million Dollar Couple We Hope! blog, because that’s about the only thing they haven’t done in their quest to be on Fear Factor. They call this a “campaign” to get the producers to have them on the show. I’m not sure why anybody would want to work so hard to lay in a pile of snakes or eat cow balls, but hey, more power to ‘em. Apparently they have made it through one casting call and have been called back. Ok, I can see the hard work, they’ve got my vote!

Trying to think of the offline equivalent of forced registration to read online news, hmm … would that be like the paperboy throwing your paper up on the roof of your house just out of reach, so you had to get the ladder out every morning to read it? No, wait, I guess if you have a paperboy that means you actually paid for the subscription. Some paperboys have terrible newspaper aim.

I digress.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) is apparently annoyed enough by the site BugMeNot which allows people to share their logins so they don’t have to register that they have made a new change to their login form, says poynter:

It’s added a third log-in field, asking vistors wishing to read an article on the site to type in their first name, in addition to e-mail address and password to log in, or complete a new registration. This has the effect of negating the fake BugMeNot log-in deployed by that free service’s users to bypass the approved registration system.

Print news has taken a beating from online news. I buy significantly less newspapers than I used to and I’m sure a lot of others are doing the same. Why read an already out of date newspaper when you can go to Google News and get stuff that happened minutes ago?

The answer for print newspaper to be successful online is not to annoy people into registering — for free or not — to their site to simply read news they can get elsewhere without registering. When I have a choice between linking to or reading a Google news linked site with the (subscription) in it vs. not I choose the one without the subscription 95% of the time. About the only time I choose the subscription one is when there is a specific angle of a story or opinion at a specific news site that can only be linked to a subscription site. Therefore, these sites that force registration in order to read content, at least in my case (which is the only case I can talk about with any real authority) are losing potential site visitors.

I’ve never used BugMeNot but I have visited the site a couple times. The site’s premise disturbs me a bit in that it’s based on circumventing a website owner’s system. It’s like a door is locked and BugMeNot is a place that provides everybody and anybody a key to access the door. I’m not judging other netizens who choose to use their service, so please don’t anybody think I’m being condescending or finger pointing, but BugMeNot just doesn’t fit my own values system, sorry. And I do agree that forcing people to register for some type sites/content is counterproductive and unnecessary. And sometimes an open door for being spammed (although I’m not suggesting that is what AJC is doing).

Any readers use BugMeNot? For what types of sites? Why? Why not?

One of my blogging buddies Toby Bloomberg of The Diva Marketing Blog (blogrolled) has just changed her design. I took the screenshot above to show her snazzy new design for her PR business. From a matter of pure aesthetics, I like the new design much better than the prior one.

Minor technical gripe: fully maximized at 1024×768 in Internet Explorer the body text doesn’t show. See red text above. In Firefox, naturally, the text is the way it should be, even with my desktop sidebar in place and a shorter width (see below). Yeah, yeah, I know — don’t use IE, use Firefox, but a lot of people still do use Internet Explorer so a site still needs to look right in IE. I use it almost exclusively on my Tablet PC, for example. I didn’t check rendering in Safari on the Mac.

Now for the design itself.

Something I immediately questioned was the use and prominence of the martini glass. Not just one glass above the Home link in a prime real estate space but another bigger one more than twice the pixel height of the logo (see the red arrows). My comment was more of curiosity than complaint in that I wondered if a professional PR blog should have an alcohol reference so prominently positioned in the design? It struck me as a very bold move.

But Toby is a bold marketer and she is the same PR person who took a bunch of flak over character blogs and grew from it — perhaps even benefitted from the exposure of it. I think her design is either really stupid or brilliant and with each new look I’ve been trying to figure out which one it is.

If Toby’s business was a small corner store bar or a liquor store owner’s blog, or perhaps even a fine dining restaurant with upscale lounge, the design seems to work, but for a PR business blog? This is how Toby describes her business:

Diva Marketing is a state of mind. It’s an approach to marketing that’s fun, bold and savvy … but always strategically aligned with your brand’s objective.

In response to my inital comments on Toby’s design at her blog, someone by the name of Allan Jenkins posted that his cousin ‘Tallulah’ “… would would have sent that T David boy out to feed the dog, and would have locked the door behind him.”

Darren Rowse who runs problogger also likes the martini glass just where it is:

I think the martini glass is cool. Change that you might as well change the whole thing because it fits perfectly. ‘professional’ is good but the tone of this site is both professional and ‘cocktail like’ in my opinion - they’re not mutually exclusive by any means. Fit’s Toby’s personality perfectly from what I can tell.

Darren - having not met Toby personally or professionally (virtually, yes) I’m not sure whether or not this fits Toby’s personality “perfectly” but then I don’t envision her as the happy hour martini type, either. Maybe cutting high end deals with a couple of martinis are the norm in the PR business world? There’s no sarcasm meant or intended here, just curiosity, I really don’t know because I’m not in that business. I do trust Toby’s expertise and experience in understanding her core and prospective clientele, though.

Darren, I notice you don’t use a beer stein or roll out any keg graphics on your business blog, nor does a six pack of Bud appear on your $325 pitch here. So I guess this doesn’t work for you, yes/no? Yeah, I’m teasing you.

I am certainly not a saint and don’t mind people drinking in moderation and hey, maybe even getting blasted once in a (great) while, as long as they are being responsible about it. Heck, a recent study shows that 14-28 drinks a week is actually better for brainpower than complete abstinence, so don’t anybody think I’m getting on some anti-alcohol tear here.

But wait, I do have a bias that needs to be disclosed, just so all the cards are on the table.

In October 1996, I lost my mother to conflicts related to alcoholism, so I’m admittedly biased to what I feel might be extraneous or unnecessary alcohol references in advertising and branding. Again, if it’s a liquor store, casino, lounge, etc, something related to a business that serves/makes alcohol or promotes partying I think it makes good sense.

Are there others out there who have lost parents or children or friends to alcohol and/or drug abuse that understand where I’m coming from? It’s a terrible addiction that grabs hold of not only weak but strong people alike and can quickly consume and destroy their lives. Not to mention making their loved ones feel completely helpless about the situation.

So it’s a possible red flag for me in business when I see this type stuff at anything other than dealing with the alcohol industry.

Just being honest and constructive. I’m not about ‘rah-rah’, ‘me too’ comments or lying just to be nice when someone asks for feedback on their design. If I didn’t care or think my comments were helpful, I wouldn’t bother at all.

Again, I do like Toby’s design and of course wish Toby the best of luck with everything she does in business.

Now it’s your turn.

I’m wondering what other readers think about this design? Does an alcohol reference like this in a business blog have any impact — positive or negative — on you? Or do you not even care because you read blogs in your RSS aggregator and don’t pay attention to the design? Does a site design change your perception about a given website, business or personal? How important is the site design to you?

This post continues my series of reporting on Tablet PC ownership. The total current days I’ve owned a Tablet PC are marked on the bottom left of the home page and at the time this was written it’s been 241 days. My intention for these posts are to record how one tablet user honestly feels about the tablet experience and what the tablet is being used for in business and home. I do not work for Microsoft, nor am I in the business of selling Tablet PCs, so readers are getting a straight view with no baggage on what it’s like owning and using the Tablet PC for business and home.

In July we put the Tablet through a rigorous vacation test. These are just a few things we planned for this tool:

- blogging and internet browsing in available areas via wireless EVDO or the slower internet connection
- Skype, when possible
- tracking our actual vacation travel progress via GPS and Streets & Trips 2005
- handwritten journal notes in a special new “vacation2005″ OneNote tab about key locations as well as recording some audio and video notes about travel destinations and plans. Some of this might become content for podcasts or vlogging about our trip someday. We passed around the Tablet in OneNote and wrote down our thoughts about various vacation locales and activities in OneNote.

Since getting back from vacation I have switched from running primariliy in portrait mode to running in the more traditional landscape mode. This gives me more widget space now that I’m using Konfabulator (it’s free, thanks to Yahoo purchasing them). Still, when it comes to using the tablet mobile I still much prefer and use portrait mode.

We started a membership to the YMCA recently and I’ve already taken the tablet to the gym. While riding the cycle, it’s possible and useful reading digital magazines, blogs and other RSS feeds with a slate. I’m still demoing and searching for a good offline RSS aggregator solution. Would like to explore blogging while working out as my blogging time has been cut into with the advent of working out. I’ve seen others walking and riding and reading print (newspapers, books, etc) — if only they had a slate they could do both.

While this doesn’t apply to every Tablet PC vendor, I was miffed to learn that Motion Computing has obsoleted the M-series tablet that I have owned for not even a year. I know this obsolesence was going to occur but I didn’t expect Motion — which makes high end, expensive tablets — to admit they were only going to make batteries and accessories for the M-series until December 31, 2007. That, IMO, is a horrible policy. I’ve already moaned and groaned about this in detail earlier at this blog, in the Tablet PC Buzz Motion forums and have called the Motion support line and told them to pass along my grievances. I encourage others that disagree with this policy to do the same. It’s not just me that’s disappointed by this policy, so we’ll see if Motion takes this information and comes back with something besides a slap in the face or just ignores the complaints.

Admittedly, this lifecycle support issue has taken a little bit of my Tablet PC steam away. I guess I’ve been what one would consider a fair weather fan of Tablet PC. I like them for certain activities and uses, but still do not like the pricing (high) of most of them. As for service? I really haven’t had to use any service yet.

The cheap plastic stand that came with my M1400 broke down the seam and is no longer usable. Thanks to advice by another tableteer I was able to use a cheap (.99 cent) wood plate holder as a suitable replacement. It works great and they sell these things at retail dollar stores. No need to buy another $16 plastic stand that breaks down the spine after six months of use. I still think it doesn’t make sense selling something over $2,000+ with a cheap and unsturdy stand.

As I approach 250 days of tablet ownership, I still use the machine every day for business and most days for pleasure. My favorite activities are (in no particular order): reading and annotating digital magazines via Zinio, making handwritten notes in OneNote (I use the Tablet for notetaking from phone calls and meetings) , snipping the occasional blog entry picture using the snipping tool, and utilyzing for making exciting, interactive sales presentations to clients. I still believe that tablets are an essential tool for salespeople and believe it has helped me in some sales situations getting attention from the prospect. For that reason, it remains worth the expensive price tag.

But if you aren’t in sales? Not in a business where you attend many meetings or take lots of notes? Not an artist? Well, I still can’t make a good case for buying a tablet in that case.

It was nice to see a tablet reappear at the local Best Buy and be somewhat prominently displayed. One of the Tablet PC undesirables is retail visibility and at least Best Buy is selling one unit again, so if you’d like to play around with one in a retail environment, then stop by your nearest Best Buy. They are also selling the Mac Mini, if you want to check into those.

I’m looking forward to what Vista brings in the way of new tablet features. I’ve read that it’s going to contain some new tablet specific features. Too bad it’s not coming until late 2006, about the time this machine will be some two years old and only one year away from the date the manufacturer isn’t going to make batteries for it any more. Hopefully the next time I write one of these updates, I can report that they have changed their policy and extended this date.

History of Tablet PC Ownership posts
December 19, 2004: First full week of ownership complete
February 13, 2005: 60 days after buying a Tablet PC, was it worth it?
March 3, 2005: Day 78 bought external CD-RW drive
May 3, 2005: Day 140
June 27, 2005: Day 196 incompatibility of EVDO Kyocera cards

Mike from Techdirt is right, corporate lawyers don’t have much sense of humor — at least the ones from FedEx, which are miffed over the creative use of their boxes as furniture at FedExFurniture.com.

A software engineer trying to save some money ended up building a bunch of furniture for his new apartment using sturdy FedEx boxes. If anything, it was a nice little advertisement for the quality of FedEx boxes. FedEx lawyers, on the other hand, saw otherwise. They sent him a takedown notice, somehow believing that the site infringed on the DMCA.

Gotta love the FedEx computer station and bed! The creator of this furniture explains what happened on his blog:

With encouragement from several friends, I put up a website with some pictures of my furniture, showing that it was “OK to be ghetto” and how you can solve a problem creatively when you’re in a bind.

Apparently FedEx did not like the message, as I was sent a cease and desist letter during the first business day after the site was started. It was strange how the letter did not specifically state what laws we violated, so I was suspicious and called around. It seemed like I was being bullied around, without any real legal standing. Jennifer Granick found out about what was going on, and offered to help me.

There are worse things that could be done with FedEx boxes than making furniture out of them. A DMCA complaint over this … really?

Scoble has been back from vacation for a few days now and this morning wrote that he’s getting ready for Vista and yet is feeling apprehensive about talking about it:

You know, I’m afraid of writing about Windows Vista. Why? Because we went out so early and created so many lofty expectations last time (big mistake) that I just wanted to crawl in a hole and say nothing. Which is pretty much what I’ve done now for about a year. Plus, Windows is such a big product, with so many people involved (thousands), with such high expectations on it, that saying anything without really understanding all the pieces is just asking for trouble.

That’s one of the most human responses to the Vista situation that I’ve read from any Microsofty to date. Not unusual coming from Scoble, though. Nice to have you back blogging again, Robert.

Whenever I read about Vista lately, I recall Steve Jobs jabbing Microsoft during Apple’s developer conference when he put 12-31-2006 as the date Windows Vista would be released — and then adding that Leopard would be right on Vista’s tail. Microsoft has already said it will be the second half of 2006. I’m guessing this will be around Christmas time next year. Good time to launch any new product as everybody knows that is the height of the retail season.

The other issue is how many people will actually upgrade to Vista right away? I will do so on at least one machine. I wonder how many others will lay in the weeds and wait and see what folks say about it, whether it has features and functions that make it worth the upgrade.

I think Vista will have the momentum like between Windows 95 and Windows XP. Sure, they will class it up and make some huge event out of it (rightly so, considering the length of time since their last OS upgrade), but I think sales-wise it will be more like Windows XP. Maybe not though. Maybe more people are ready for a new OS, hungry for it. Especially if it promises much needed security enhancements.

I’m curious what others think on this one. 1) when will Vista really come out? and 2) what kind of sales will it do? 3) will it be coming at the right time or will it be too late?

Also, how much of the pie will Apple have by then? Dual boot Macs with Windows sound increasingly attractive to me although I’m getting more excited about a tablet with Vista. Whatever actually happens, the latter part of 2006 is going to be very interesting.