USA Today Poll showing religion by state. Washington state shows 25% who took the American Religious Identification Survey answered “no religion.” Who knows how accurate the data is here and it’s only the lower states.

25% Washington State
22% Vermont
21% Colorado
21% Oregon
20% Nevada
20% Wyoming
19% California
19% Idaho
18% New Mexico
17% Arizona

In case you are curious, North Dakota had the least percentage of “no religion” with 3%.

[Download states_no_religion.xls]

Yesterday our family went to see my 83 year old grandmother, who we’ve always lovingly called Nana. She lives south of us in the rural town of Mossyrock, Washington. You can see some of her handiwork in the plants, trees and shrubbery of this home:

That’s a picture of the home I grew up in which I wrote about last year in Going Home. Nana and I talked about many good times through the years and one thing I’d noticed since the last time I’d seen her is her hearing has deteriorated. These days you have to sit or stand really close to her, speak loudly, clearly and deliberately for her to be able to hear what you’re saying.

This got me thinking of what my hearing will be like when I’m 83 and it probably won’t be good no thanks to the loud music I listened to without protection as a kid. I’m much smarter about important details in life like that these days and took ear protection to the Metallica concert in Key arena back in 2004. However, my son and I didn’t take ear protection to Ozzfest last year although we were outside and away from the stage. Outside concerts aren’t usuallly as bad for your hearing as inside ones, but we still should have had ear protection just in case.

We drove down to Mayfield Lake together to a private dock area and the kids played on an old rope swing. Our youngest teen was a bit nervous about swinging on the rope at first but our middle child was Tarzan.

We then went back to Nana’s house and talked some more about the past. We got into the war a bit which is where my Grandfather (”Papa”) flew B-17 bomber missions during World War II. I don’t think I could ever tire of hearing those stories. Nana misses Papa who died a few years back. He had his ashes scattered by a tree at one of their favorite fishing spots. Nana showed me the picture of the spot on her refrigerator.

“I’ll be joining Papa there someday.”

At some point the conversation turned to how families are more fragmented these days. My sister who lives up in Canada hasn’t talked to Nana in years. I’m hoping the last time wasn’t when I called her to tell her about Papa passing away. I’m going to give her a call later today and ask her to call Nana. Hopefully I can reach her and she’ll call. My sister seemed very saddened that she didn’t get a chance to talk to Papa before he died. You really never know with family — with friend, with anyone really — when the last time you will see or talk to them will be.

From a historical perspective, Nana went through the depression, WWII (she worked as a telephone operator), the 50’s, 60s and Vietnam, 70s and gas crunch. She’s seen a lot of history. In her opinion the world isn’t a better place today than it was in the old days. I’m not sure I agree completely with that one, but I do agree that families aren’t as close on the whole as they once were.

How often do you see and/or talk to your extended family (grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc)? How often do you see your brothers, sisters, mom and dad? We saw my dad last in Spring training and he took our whole family out to see the Mariners play in Peoria.

Too many two parent or single parent working families these days. I don’t think it’s because parents want to be away from their children and let videogames, television and the internet/computers raise them, it’s a matter of necessity. The cost of everything has become more expensive. Heck, our grocery bill for a family of five is over $800/month alone. Teenager boys can dismantle full cupboards.

In our family, we feel pretty fortunate and grateful to be able to spend so much time with our family. Every day either my wife or I is home with the children and if not our office is only a block away. We do not take enough time to see uncles and aunts and even Nana who only lives a little over an hour’s drive away. We don’t even visit my sister’s family in Canada (about 2 1/2 hours away) very often. I haven’t seen my youngest uncle in years and he lives about 30 minutes away. My middle uncle is President of a bank chain here in Washington and I haven’t seen him in years either. His youngest daughter just got married in Hawaii and there is going to be a reception next month.

Nana says she kept the letters from Papa to his mother during WWII and someday those will be shared with the rest of the family. Those boys didn’t know if they’d be coming home. A lot of them didn’t.

Sunday is a great day to check in, at least by telephone, with family and see how they are doing.

In the old days what I’m writing here would likely have been written in ink on paper and stored away in a diary. Maybe only a half dozen people or so would ever see or read it this close to real time. All of them most likely close family. There were no blogs or RSS feeds, no email, no internet, no computers, but there was one much more important thing.

Families.

Some might deem this impatient, but I don’t understand why pilot tests are being done for possibly making home appliances that report to computers across a network wirelessly. They should already have this technology here already and available now.

The project, which involves Whirlpool Corp., Panasonic and Microsoft Corp., relies on a wireless network, two TV tuners and Microsoft Media Server software to send the details to devices across the home network and beyond. It could be at least a year from the marketplace, depending on how the pilot and other studies iron out.

Hopefully when this year or so is up, we will receive this data in a non-proprietary format — are you listening, Microsoft? — so we can work with it and incorporate it into spreadsheets. These machines should be smart enough to tell us when they are overheating because of a clogged air vent. How did we find out recently that we had a clogged air vent? We looked. Why isn’t the machine able to tell when it is overheating. Doh, it knows enough to trip a breaker inside itself, so why doesn’t it send out a signal to our PC or cellphone and say: “Houston, we have a problem.”

Our household appliances for the most part are dumb. Manufacturers have spent foolish amounts of time and money putting LCDs inside the doors of refrigerators instead of giving us features that would help us be proactive to breakdowns. At Best Buy recently I saw one of these TV-in-door fridges and thought: why wouldn’t people buy an LCD monitor and mount somewhere besides the door of the fridge? And who would watch TV on the door of their fridge for any extended time? While cooking is the pitch, but why not a laptop or slate Tablet and Slingbox instead? Much more portable.

Now I fully expect somebody to comment and tell me the TV in their fridge door is the greatest idea ever. Just another thing to break.

I can name that Zune in, mmm, er, ahhh, one — one rabbit!

Confused? I can relate if you looked at comingzune.com which is reportedly the teaser site for Microsoft’s new portable music device that they think hope pray will compete with the iPod.

At the end of this odd video — I wonder if it was drawn with a Tablet PC? — comes a sneak peek at the Zune logo:

Engadget has a bunch of Zune details with Ryan Block declaring “… this is one of the biggest gadget news stories of the year for consumer electronics.” Good to see the Microsoft hype machine has Engadget’s support.

Anybody remember the UMPC? The same UMPCs we’ve run a poll for here on the home page the last six months and the number one response (59%) is “Huh? What’s that?” followed by “No plans to buy” (29%). Microsoft had better hope Hmm polls remain completely unscientific. Ahh yes, those glorious UMPCs that were supposed to be priced from $500-$1000, and yet how many have you seen in retail stores at $500 or even $750?

And how about all those portable Windows Media video players? You know, the ones that cost around 500 bones? Those haven’t exactly become must-have portable devices.

Don Dodge writes:

Microsoft came from behind with the X-Box and will do it again with Zune. In fact, the Zune team is in the same organization as X-Box. Don’t be surprised if Zune supports mobile gaming and has some ties to X-Box.

I think Mr. Dodge is being too anxious here but at least he’s not resorted to calling it an [gasp] ‘iPod killer.’ Xbox had one thing that Sony didn’t: a killer broadband-only online initiative. I’ll continue to give Microsoft huge props for everything that is Xbox Live because it’s the best gaming experience out there but I’m 99.99999% not convinced Zune will be worth even half the hype it’s generating. Has there been any Windows Media portable device that competes on the scale of the iPod? And what about MSN Music vs. iTunes Music Store? MSN Music has, or at least had ,an exclusive deal with AC DC and that’s the brightest star I can name on their map.

This is coming from somebody who doesn’t currently own/use an iPod and considers himself platform agnostic. I’m sure the iPod faithful are already shredding the idea that Microsoft could develop a worthy iPod competitor simply based on history, but if the Redmond camp does go with something that plays games and works with Xbox Live Arcade, that would interest me. I hope that’s what Zune will be doing. It’s on Engadget’s “maybe” list.

I wonder if the Zune folks have seen the humorous video below and don’t fall into the same traps of past Microsoft products. Despite my clear lack of confidence with Microsoft’s portable device plans, I wish them well.

Download Hmmcast #17 (mp3)

Most Hmm-worthy posts from July 15 - July 21, 2006
- Auto date and timestamped entries in Notepad with handy .LOG trick (2) [july 15]
- Arbys sandwiches, drinks and I’m Thinking Music Sweepstakes (**1) [july 16]
- RUMOR: iTunes to announce movie rental plan at WWDC, says Think Secret (3) [july 18]
- Article shows 12 recent examples of Vonage indirectly funding spyware (**4) [july 18]
- Calacanis wants to siphon the most active blood from Digg and call them Netscape Navigators (**9) [july 19]
- Please don’t go Feedburner promo link crazy like this (**7) [july 20]
- *Google video permalinks, nice (6) [july 21]

This week historical news events
- Sony UMD going the way of the dinosaur
- FIFA penalizes World Cup headbutter with community service
- Indian government accused of blocking all TypePad, blogs.com and blogspot.com blogs

**Comments by
Ichinisan, Davis Freeberg, absinthe

How to subscribe to Hmmcast
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Duration: 9:41

Haven’t commented on the whole soccer headbutt meltdown during the recent World Cup, but I don’t care what type of verbal insults the guy was launching — even if it was about the guy’s mother — you don’t bare your head down and butt him. Reminded me, although not as visceral, of Tyson biting Holyfield’s ear.

FIFA has kicked the incident around, finally weighing in with the subspensions and fines.

Zinedine Zidane will perform community service as penance for his infamous head butt on Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final. Materazzi didn’t get off unscathed, either … Materazzi, the Italian defender who provoked the head butt by insulting Zidane, was suspended for two games and fined $4,000.

Wonder how many people (like me) didn’t watch the World Cup but found it nearly impossible to escape the news of this bizarre incident?

You just sat through 10 minutes of video and the best parts you wanted to talk about and point to in your write-up are at 5:33 and 7:24 respectively, how do you do it?

The traditional way has been telling readers the timestamps and letting them fast forward (when possible) to the points, but now Google Video is letting us anchor link directly to videos on Google Video at the the timestamps with the following format:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=ID#ZZhXXmYYs

ID = the ID of the video
# = start the video permalink
ZZ = the hour where the clip takes place
XX = the minute where the clip takes place
YY = the seconds

A Few Examples
- My Incredible Hulk Review where I growl like the Hulk [0m4s = 0 minutes, 4 seconds into the video clip]
- Hulk review again where the review grade shows up on screen [1m0s = 1 minute, 0 seconds]
- Some dude creating a fart flamethrower (pictured above).
- Second Life video where CEO Phillip Rosedale explains that they “started in 2003 with 16 simulators [servers] online” [12m48s = 12 minutes, 48 seconds]
- Another Second Life video where Daniel Linden explains that eventually Linden Lab will open source the SL server software [01h10m20s = 1 hour, 10 minutes, 20 seconds]

Much needed feature
This feature serves multiple purposes: it lets people link to the best parts of videos and allows Google to determine search relevancy based on the text surrounding these permalinks. Google isn’t calling them permalinks, but I am. They are just making it sound like you can email people to your favorite spots.

Will be interesting to see how this improves Google video searches relevancy over time. Google Video has not been a significant competitor to YouTube yet, but they are improving.

Disclaimer: I own GOOG stock.

Update 6/2/07 9:45am PST: Updated the instructions above to include hours as well as an example showing usage.

Update 10/28/08 10:48am PST: You can do this at YouTube as well by appending to the end of a YouTube video URL in the following format:

#t=00m00s

So if I wanted to link to a spot in a video at the 2:32 mark the code would look like this:

#t=02m23s

Slimtimer, a web based timer, is sort of what I was hoping Tick would have included when I reviewed earlier this week. Perhaps the two companies will join forces down the road and make a single project management time tracking tool.

First, the best news: you don’t need a super secret handshake private invite, it’s open to the public as of this writing. The registration and signup proces involves entering in your name, email address and password. An email will be sent with a validation code to click, all standard fare. Good, it worked with + in my email where many of these programs tested did not [youremail+slimtimer@abcdomain.com < -- just here for example and to irritate harvesters].

A bookmarklet is available to launch the SlimTimer and as the screenshot above shows, it really is slim. Using Screen Calipers, the screenshot below shows it is a mere 155 pixels wide:

Click here to view an actual size screenshot. The actual screen real estate required for the timer for various resolutions ranges from a high of 19.4% for 800×600 to 12.1% or better for higher resolutions.

(19.4%) 800×600 = 155 px
(15.1%) 1024×768 = 155 px
*(12.1%) 1280×720 (*desktop shown at the top of post)

Starting the timer using Add Task
After launching the SlimTimer it wasn’t very intuitive as to what to do next. Add Task opens a menu with these cryptic grayed out codes:

Task [tag 1, tag2] c(coworker@st.com) r(client@acme.com)

Toggle Help attempts to add a key to the items, but the slim instructions still aren’t very clear:

[tag1, tag2]
Set tags; comma delimited.
c(coworker@email.com)
Set coworkers; comma or space delimited.
r(reporter@email.com)
Set reporters; comma or space delimited.

My assumption was this allowed you to set tags at the same time you assigned a task as well as assigning a coworker and reporter email addresses. Suggestion to developer: add some real world examples as to how these fields might be filled out. Or at least a first time wizard to walk through the process.

Here is how I got running with a task:

STEP 1. Click “Add Task”
STEP 2. Typed in “Testing SlimTimer” and hit enter
STEP 3. A “Testing SlimTimer” checkbox and text appeared just below the Tag/Comment and I clicked on the “Testing SlimTimer” text. The red timer with 0.00 turned green and the counting began.
STEP 4. Added Tag: “test” with comment: “first test of SlimTimer.”
STEP 5. To stop timing I just closed the window.

Reporting options
On the SlimTimer website under the “Manage Tasks” tab I learned more about the mysterious coworker and reporter options which appear to be using email as a permission structure for who can access the information and what can be done with the records of the activity.

Coworkers: “Can make time entries on, mark task completed and run reports.”
Reporters: “Can run reports of time logged on this task.”

You can also view the following projects:

Active - “Created by or shared with me and not completed.”
Mine - “Created by or shared with me and not completed.”
Theirs - “Shared with me and not completed.”
Completed - “Completed by myself or a coworker.”

Support options
There is a Google group for SlimTimer and the first request was something that immediately crossed my mind: offline timing. The author also welcomes direct feedback via email. There doesn’t appear to be an official SlimTimer blog. [Update 7/27/06 12:12pm PST: the author replied below that the official blog is here]

Will I use SlimTimer?
I will try using it for a couple projects and see how it goes, but I would rather have something like ActiveTimer on the Mac where I can set what programs to watch how much time is spent in and automatically insert that data into the task data. Offline time tracking is important for working out of the office so this tool only helps for work done in the office and/or where an internet connection is present. I realize that seems like a lame complaint for web based software, but the reality is not everybody always has internet when they are working on projects. Grade: C+.

Here’s something a little different to review: an online web audio/video contest site called Bix. It’s currently in the dreaded invite-only status and I’m not sure how many invites one can send out, which I’ll get back to in a little bit. You can also sign up at the site for an invite like I did. It took about a day for an invite to arrive to my inbox. Clicking the coded link in the invite email will then allow registering. You know the drill.

First, the bad news: Bix doesn’t work with Firefox yet. So you either suffer through the Internet Explorer version with ActiveX plugin or move over to Safari or Camino with Java. I didn’t test the Safari or Camino with Java hookup, but did put the ActiveX through several recording sessions. You will need a web camera if you want record video and similar to the Grouper shoutouts feature you can do it right through the browser with no additional software.

Karaoke anyone?
Once registering for Bix, login and search for contests to view and vote on, enter or create your own contest. Contests range from lipsync to static pictures to Karaoke where you pick from the built-in database of songs and then Karaoke on camera. I’m not sure whether or not these Bix are licensed for this, but I hope the answer is yes.

The karaoke functionality would be great if it worked completely during my testing. I tried recording Indian Nation by Paul Revere & The Raiders at least three times and it wouldn’t complete the upload process without errors. There was no way to save the video locally so I basically lost each recording take (very frustrating). When uploading Bix kept erroring out with “your title is too long. Maximum length 50 characters.” Strangely, there was no input field for a title so I don’t know have any idea what was up there. The support forum is a ghost town, no hope there.

Actually recording, previewing and re-recording through the browser worked ok. The lyrics spin across a mini-teleprompter in the browser at the right moments during the song. The song selection is a little suspect, unless you are a Beatles, country or pop fan with a few hundred songs to choose from maybe. On the Bix site it says they are working on expanding the song database.

Thumbs up your way to $7,500 USD
There is a 60 second comedy contest where the first prize is $7,500 USD for the most thumbs up votes, with no number of entries limit. Looks like I was the first one brave — or stupid — enough to enter and upload.

Fortunately, the comedy part worked the first take. Just add a title and short description and click the upload button. After a couple minutes — yeah, kind of slow — it uploaded the video and added to the searchable database. I noticed that the most recent recorded video shows up on the homepage for added exposure. I took a screenshot that shows me no the homepage for my comedy entry.

If you have some comedic genius just itching to get out, $7,500 for a few minutes prep and work is well worth a try. What do you have to lose besides your video dignity? I entered with not one but two videos: Whistle Drink and One dollar, 41 cents. Note: those links will only work once you are registered for the site, which I’m happy to send you an invititation if I can for the rest of July 2006 or until I run out of invites, if you leave a comment below. The invite will be sent to the email you use in your comments.

And the audience votes, American Idol style
It didn’t take very long to receive my first thumbs down vote. And thumbs up vote too. And more came. And shocker, I attracted one fan. Maybe I can quit my dreams of being a writer and become the next Dave Chappelle? Just a few more fans and I’ll keep my eyes peeled for the paparazzi.

From the user side, you can view videos, listen to audio-only productions, leave comments and vote thumbs up or thumbs down and of course invite your friends to check it out.

If Bix works out the quirks and technical glitches — of which I encountered several — they might have something more interactive than … well, more interactive than YouTube until YouTube decides to add similar contest features and functionality. I’m kind of surprised YouTube hasn’t done something like this already.

Bix is similar to hitting the Karaoke bar without the designated driver and headaches and scarred memories the next morning. The headaches being for those who need a little spiritual lubrication motivation to get up on stage and torture real singers William Hung style, but I wouldn’t know anything about that, of course.

It’s too bad the Karaoke upload function wouldn’t work for me because I think my comedic, clumsy rendition of Indian Nation complete with fire, smoke, handcuffs and Tabasco sauce would have made The Raiders proud. Maybe I’ll try again on the Mac with iSight someday.

Class action lawsuit info via FMS: Washington State residents who bought a Dell computer with optional service contracts:

If you purchased certain optional service contracts for Dell-branded computer hardware between April 23, 1999 and February 1, 2005, and paid monies as “tax” for such service contracts, you may be eligible for a payment under the terms of the settlement, or you can exclude yourself from the settlement, or object to it.

My wife tells me she filled out something and sent it back already but I don’t think we are elligible because we almost never buy extended warranties. Other states could file similar class action suits so if you fit the description but don’t reside in Washington state this might still be a story worth following.

Dell didn’t keep the money, they paid it to Washington State, but the mistake is theirs and resulted in some $24 million dollars in overcharged sales taxes.

Will announcements like these make it to the new One2One Dell blog? If anything should generate a “direct conversation with Dell” this should.

How did this happen, Dell? Why? What will you do — or are you currently doing — to help get the word out?