Been noticing many Google search requests here for my irider review, so I thought I’d update you on how that browser is doing for me. Yesterday, I registered irider and I’ve encouraged my webmaster friend Kaiser to register it as well. Noticed that theludwigs also gives irider thumbs up. If you haven’t downloaded the irider browser and given it a 21 day trial, I suggest doing so now. It isn’t feature crippled in any way during this 21 day trial, so you can see if it is something that truly can/will make you more productive.

I have been using irider to compliment Internet Explorer instead of replace it, actually. Since irider takes your favorites from IE if you add something to your IE favorites, it will be added to irider automatically, and vice versa. I’ve setup two books, as irider calls them, which launch my regularly visited sites for me. When I’m done check them out I click the handy “close all” button and then I can start the process anew hours later. It sure beats having a zillion windows at the bottom menu of Windows. Also, even with many windows resources seem to be pretty well optimized in my tests.

So what has changed from version 2.06 to 2.07: This maintenance release fixes various minor problems. so certainly if you are registered user you will want to go and download it ASAP.

Er, yes they do. But the reality is that if you are a pedestrian at a crosswalk a dozen or more cars will pass you by without any regard; most of them with driver still blabbering away on their cell phones. Jeff Jarvis posts of a women struck down by a garbage truck recently. We had a nice guy here locally who rode around on one of those carts because he had touble walking. He had one of those bright red flags on his cart so when he crossed the road you could see him. Sure enough, some idiot motorist struck him in his cart and killed him. We’ve all made mistakes driving, but it compounds the complication of driving when we start adding too many driver-distractions: cell phones, TV, cd, GPS, espresso, etc. I am a technology whore, but when it comes to driving, I try and keep my eyes on the road and I do stop for pedestrians everywhere. And wave to folks — it’s the right thing to do.

That cool, futuristic Segway Transporter is getting a little more press

The strange-looking Segway Human Transport - which retails for nearly $5,000 - is now being used by the Finest as part of a 60-day trial to determine “if they are feasible on a big-city force,” a department spokesperson said.

This might work for meter maids and for some police positions, but they won’t be terribly useful for crime patrol. Just imagine the humor of a Segway chase between thug and cops? They actually have a place here in Seattle that rents Segways.

Three chipmakers and Noki, who makes 1/3rd of all cellphones, banded together to form the MIPI Alliance which will “…help define the technology building blocks of new phone features.” and attempt to keep Intel and Microsoft from dominating like they do with PCs. Also in on the MIPI Alliance are: STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, ARM (who makes core processor chips in most cell phones) and other hitters in the wireless phone business.

There is a new school opening in New York that is going to enroll 100 gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender students. This is being done to allow the students a better learning environment where they won’t be teased and ridiculed for not being heterosexual. A talk show host in Seattle was making the point that isn’t this similar to the segregation of african americans 40 or 50 years ago? Back then it was liberals that were up in arms — and rightfully so — about this segregation and here we are years later with the same thing essentially with people who are gay.

Somebody finally did the math on the RIAA lawsuits against filetraders. Michaela Stephens calculates that it will take 2191 years for the RIAA to sue all estimated 60 million filetraders based at a rate of 75 per day.

In this article the Business Software Alliance’s (BSA) Mark Floisand lays down feelings on those who buy pirated software:

“If someone buys software at about a tenth of its purchase price they must know they are getting a pirated copy and I’ve no sympathy if it trashes their system.”

He goes onto add:

“It’s the people thinking they’re getting legitimate second-hand software at a slight discount who are getting a rough deal, and we’ll work with trading standards officers to track down the vendors.”

It’s true, they found in Uday and Qusay Hussein’s possession were 100 million dollars, a supply of viagra and one lone condom. I sure hope they weren’t going to reuse, share or recycle that badboy! 100 million bones will buy many million lifetimes worth of condoms! I guess we should all rest soundly knowing that at least one of them was into practicing safe sex. Er, sort of.

Microsoft is making advances in getting Windows CE into more cars. Bill Gates recently gave a speech to researchers

Gates said only the most basic business processes are handled digitally today, so many of the real productivity gains still lie ahead. “Certainly less than 10 percent of that has actually been realized,” he said.

Just imagine what that other 90% consists of: probably some really wild internet-related ideas.

In entertainment news, Spy Kids 3D took #1 in the box office over the weekend. Kara tells me that we have to wait and see that with our youngest. It’s on my list of looking forward to see, actually. Anybody reading this seeing it? No spoilers, please, but is it any good … or does it suck?

Recently, I’ve been seeing a few negative comments about blogs out there from webmasters who think of them as a mere passing fad and that traffic from them isn’t all that financially beneficial from a business perspective. All surfers have money or know somebody who has money, so pretty much any human being clicking traffic is a potential customer.

I think blogs are sort of mini-publishing houses, giving the common man (or woman) a publishing outlet that is very similar to building a whole website. And some people’s websites are already blogs, they just don’t call them that. Here is what I posted at Netpond a little bit ago in reference to this:

I’m curious, and no offense meant here, but are you talking from experience on working with actual targeted blog traffic that it wasn’t worthy for your biz? Or did you just have a few (or more) of your sites bumped down in Google rank from blogs and that’s currently affecting your outlook on them?

I had some sites bumped too in rank by blogs, and at first I was a bit ruffled by them (thought they would just be a passing fad, really), but then I thought, wait, this could be a new, different traffic opportunity and with AOL jumping on board recently with AOL Journals it really is something that webmasters need to sit up and at the least take seriously.

So the glass is half full for me on these weblogs at the moment.

There are lots of different ideas webmasters can use to make sales from blogs and you really don’t think Google would have bought them (Pyra Labs) if they were all just only a waste of space, do you?

Check out scripting.com and follow along with Dave Winer’s evangelism if you want to learn more about blogging and the national media exposure this blogging is getting.

I’ll grant you that some blogs aren’t all that useful content-wise, but like guestbooks (remember those?), it is another place to get out and sign your name and put your URL

And if anybody has blog traffic they don’t want, redirect it to my blog, I’ll happily take it and make $$ from it

See you all in the Blogosphere!