I used to follow and write about Skype frequently, even before it was the internet phenomenon that it is today, but lost most interest once I realized what using it ultimately required. I realized after getting over the initial honeymoon that it was a better voice chat application with a unique (at the time) P2P proprietary solution. However, in the real world I don’t have a dozen different types of telephones connecting through proprietary connections so the real world usefulness of Skype was lost in my daily workflow. We still use it for a few business-oriented applications, but nothing like we did even a year ago.

Now Jan in Malaysia Charlie is claiming he spoke to someone who has cracked the Skype protocol and was given a screenshot of the alleged working app. This mysterious cracker indicates that the code will be opened and available next month somewhere on a China server where eBay will have a hard time reaching and shutting it down.

If this rumor — and remember it is only a rumor — turns to be true, what will be eBay’s next move? Jan Charlie postulates:

So what will be Skype’s response? Perhaps with all the other troubles they are having right now they will hope that this news just fades away. Maybe they will decide to open the Skype protocol to allow others to freely develop applications to work together with the Skype network like Google’s Jingle Protocol for Google Talk. Maybe, but I doubt it. Maybe eBay will use a few of their Millions of dollars to buy up this Chinese company.

As I said last night about Live Messenger and Yahoo communicating with each other: it’s good to see. The internet would be a better place with open standards for IM and VoIP.

Just so it’s clear here, I’m not promoting or condoning the efforts of developers to crack proprietary software, but I would like to see eBay open up the Skype protocol. I don’t believe that will happen any time soon, but it’s the billion dollar hole card that eBay could play.

How much are you skyping these days?

Update 4:03pm PST: Looks like I blew it by identifying a plagiarist instead of the original content author. Thank you for pointing out the original source, Charlie, the link in the post above has been corrected. My apologies for the error. Would have been corrected sooner but I was in the middle of our weekly live radio show. I worry about this stuff from unfamiliar sources. My bad

This is the type of borderline worksafe story I’d be more apt to put on our semi-imaginary sister site nakedyougohmm.com with much more detail.

Anyway, watch out for the Streisand effect with a domain, via Reuters:

Goldman Sachs last week submitted a complaint to the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) arguing the Internet domain name goldmansex.com would cause confusion and contained links to objectionable “adult” material. The NAF mediates corporate disputes including those over Internet domain names.

Purely for reporting purposes (of course!) I checked out goldmansex.com (don’t worry, it’s worksafe, screenshot of homepage above) and noticed it is billed as providing “the largest global directory for adult entertainment to business travellers.”

Conversely, a perusal of the Goldman Sachs site bears no similarities to goldmansex.com site other than the similarity of the first name.

Coming from somebody who has been around the web block awhile, I find it extremely hard to believe that somebody would mistype ’sachs’ as ’sex.’ Somebody should send the folks at Goldman Sachs this archived Hmm post: How to keep stride with typo squatters.

A good award for nakedyougohmm.com (should it ever become fully developed) instead of the Streisand Effect would be the Penis Effect. Actually I can think of an even better name, but I’ll stop now after disrupting all content filters for the day already.

Unlike the Adsense.com customer confusion discussed last night, this sachs vs. sex thing wasn’t an issue. It will be more so now. Doh!

Update 10:01am PST: Just saw this related tidbit at Valleywag:

Note2Dell: Before naming your blog one2one, check whether one2one.com is a porn site. Because, well, it is.

[via ZDnet] Good motivation for buying the domain names of products/services/blogs, even if you just redirect them to a third party location at first. Domain registration is cheap.

These beta invite schemes are really becoming sleazy. They had already encouraged and promoted elitism, but now they are sinking to an even deeper low: marketing without advance disclosure to people who signed up for beta invites.

Some days I have to remind myself why I bother signing up for them. And while it isn’t really spam since you signed up approving the email (see ink above) it feels a lot like spam. Am I masochist or what? Why?

1) because not every beta invite programs treats your email address like a crack whore
2) because we can still hit delete and ignore
3) because I look forward to finding and sharing new/different/unique/updated products and services that save time and increase productivity or just make life more enjoyable

Getting in early on something is the golden time to be heard and have the greatest chance of making a difference. As products/services grow, they, generally speaking, become harder to penetrate to the people who matter. This is one area that I think blogs have helped improve, but if you want to get close to the metal and talk to the people behind a company and help shape a product/service, the best time is usually in the early days.

A trend that Google helped popularize with Gmail invites spawned a whole bunch of marketing copycats. When you signed up for the Gmail invite they didn’t market you during the process, they just send the freaking invite. Google claimed this wasn’t a marketing practice, it was because they didn’t have enough servers. Some people believed this, but I didn’t, especially when at around the same time they were offering the Wikipedia webspace.

Unfortunately, some others are using this beta invite period as a recruiting and marketing campaign. Those who are doing this with their web pooh point oh business, please stop. Think about what people are actually committing to when they give you an email address: an invite. That’s all they want. An invite. Not spam.

An invite request is not an invitation for bragging about what we can’t see
My least favorite private beta invite request scenario is getting email telling us when we will receive the invite, and then using the time to pitch us about how great the product is that we can’t see yet. Even worse is when the email goes on to tell us what others have thought about the site/service we can’t see. People I know and publications I read. The infamous they got to look, but you can’t, neener, neener pitch.

It’s like saying: hey, you aren’t good enough to check this out, you aren’t part of the club elite, but here is what the club elite is saying. And hey, here are a few top secret screenshots!

If you do that to me on a beta invite list, my interest in your product/service just went from interested to annoyed. Use your blog to tease, not the beta invite list.

The most recent to do this was Craig Fitzpatrick CEO of Devshop.com. I emailed [Fitzpatrick] him privately before writing this blog entry complaining about this very practice. I’m not going to quote from private email conversations without permission, but anybody else on their 2,700+ invite list has already seen the same message I complained about. I am not accusing devshop of spamming but I find it very ironic that the signup text reads: “Your address will only be used to send you the occasional notification. We’re no spammers.”

Just as I told Craig directly, I’m probably the only one of the 2,700+ who complained, but because people don’t speak up doesn’t mean they don’t have an opinion on the subject. In Craig’s defense I will say he responded promptly to my complaint and seemed legitimately concerned.

Now, it’s your turn to declare my general complaint about this beta invite marketing strategy as baseless, petty or warranted. Despite giving a recent example above I’m not interested in talking about any specific company or invite list but the practice itself. When you sign up for a beta invite list are you expecting to get anything besides the invite and/or possibly information about when the invitation will arrive?

Lastly, good manners suggest that an invitation is just that and it seems very boorish to complain about an invite to anything. I fully realize that and some will probably flame me for it, but please remember if nobody questions these practices then they continue and can worsen. Let’s get the conversation started and let businesses know whether or not this is an acceptable marketing path. Fire up your keyboard and comment or trackback in with your 2 1/2 rusted pennies.

My opinion is clear: if we sign up for something specific like an invite to check out your beta, just send us what you promised when it is ready. Send us only what you promised and don’t try to market us or add to some other list or squeeze in some other marketing messages unless you clearly disclose this will be happening before we subscribe. And I don’t understand marketing the same thing to someone who is already signed up to check it out. Is the company marketing without our permission to remind us why we signed up?

That’s inviting them to change their mind.

Warner Crocker’s friend Larry Dahlke had writer’s blogger’s block and is wondering what to call it?

There must be a word for those stretches of time when you don’t blog. Blabsent? Blought? Bloggone?

I’d shoot for a variation on the word “isn’t” since a writer’s block means one is not writing, stuck and unable to get the writing process flowing. And if you follow along with the plural of ‘is’ which is ‘are’ then you get the first letter of the most popular syndication method used by blogs: ‘R’SS. So my choice for a word describing writer’s block for a blogger — or anybody who creates content that is updated in an RSS feed whether it be vloggers, podcasters or bloggers — is RSSn’t.

In web terms that would be rssnt.com. I saw this easy to remember five letter domain was available, registered and added it to one of our dedicated servers. This will be a good domain for creating, collecting and sharing tips for how to beat writer’s block in all forms. Coincidentally I’ve been working on a writing-related project so the timing is good.

Below are a couple logo possibilities I whipped up. Click them to see on a white browser background. Which one(s), if any, do you like best?

#1: Full size logo

#2: Full size logo 2

#3: Medium logo

#4: Small logo

Since returning from the funeral a couple hours ago, I’ve been pouring through my inbox and my wife has been on me to return this mini-oven to the store (she doesn’t drive by choice so any long distance store runs are up to me). I can’t hold her at bay any longer. It’s time for me to move but I made some notes below of recent stories, some which are new (to me) up to the last hour and some of which were in the queue from the last few days.

- The announcement in October 2005 that Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger) and Yahoo would be allowing interoperability between the two platforms assembling the largest combined IM network over 300 million users has finally beared its first fruit along with Y! Messenger client icon on the live.com ideas page (pictured right). This is a positive news. Communication between the two networks will be via SSL. Now if they go the next mile and add Jabber functionality (thus GTalk could be included), and if Skype and other VoIP players get on board, then we actually might have a single place to use chat. Ahhh, dreams.
- Buffalo meat, anyone? It’s day #2 of Rocketboom v2.0.
- the owners of adsense.com who had since 1995 — and still have — a business on the web called Adsense Consulting (hailing from Eugene Oregon) prior to Google naming their popular contextual ads program have decided after a barrage of Google Adsense-related customer contacts to use a different domain: adsense2.com. They should have used adsense1995.com to identify how long they’ve been in business. [source: Wired]
- Apparently the feud between friends Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton won’t prevent them from agreeing to another season of the Simple Life. I won’t be watching, we are on day 23 and counting without TV.
- Allen Heckerd has sued Michael Jordan for $832 million because too many people think Heckerd looks like the famous basketball star. Looking at the pictures side by side and see very little resemblance. If this lawsuit is taken serious, the world has ended. [source: breaking windows]
- While this is news is a bit stale, I originally learned about it from Director of Product Development for Telligent who makes the .NET-powered blogging program Community Server, Scott Watermasysk pointing out that Dell has started a blog. While I’m not a huge Community Server fan (the ink blogging part is the best part), I do like how he ends the post saying: “Starting a blog is easy, keeping it up is very hard. I am hopeful Dell can keep it going for the long haul.” So true, especially for corporate blogs. When is Microsoftie Ray Ozzie going to update his? Last update: April Fool’s Day. Perhaps the single worst day of the year to stall or end a blogging stint.
- And speaking of Dell, they are planning on cutting back on those difficult to claim rebate offers just to show a cheaper price scheme. Thank goodness. Businesses should be fined that show prices that aren’t immediately available at the register. No, I mean it was really $2,000, not the $1,299 shown … and is only that price after committing to an AOL subscription for years and playing a maddening game of rebate Twister.
- WP video comments plugin looks intriguing, might demo it here or on one of our other blogs.
- Cloudy Eden Productions created a video blending and syncing the Back to the Future, Part 1 and 2 Enchantment under the Sea Dance segments.

Having only attended a couple funerals in my life and today being DM’s funeral I’m pondering something I don’t usually spend much time thinking about (quick, somebody call the fashion police): what should I wear?

Off to the search engines. The first result on Google went to about.com which can that site have any more advertising? Two sentences completely surrounded and engulfed by ads. A decent site with ok content but I won’t visit very often because of the ad saturation. Yeah, yeah, use ad blockers. Sorry, there are enough sites out there that don’t kill visitors with ads that there is no need to try and circumvent the website’s intentions.

The best result on the Google search results first page seemed to be from Obituaries Today which gives guidelines on funeral etiquette for various religions. Since I’m not a deeply religious person — but do respect those who are (ok, maybe not Jehovah’s Witness that won’t leave us alone) — web pages like these are valuable.

If somebody in your family has died or you know somebody who needs to organize a funeral triptronix has some useful information on how to organize a funeral. Hopefully nobody in our family or yours will need that any time soon, but it’s here for future reference.

I’m not with the whole Johnny Cash wardrobe motiff and don’t own any black shirts. Black pants and socks, belt, yes. Turns out I have two black ties (pictured above). The Loony Tunes one would be the type of thing I’d like people to wear to my funeral, but most likely inappropriate for DM’s funeral. It seems from what I’m reading this morning that it is no longer a requirement to wear all black.

I have to get my haircut first. Getting pretty sheepy.

So, any readers been to a funeral recently? What did you wear?

Warning: some navel gazing ahead, but also there is something in it for webmasters, so it’s not completely self-absorbed. Skip what follows if this doesn’t turn you on.

For those readers with blogs, you might want to check Technorati because at least some of the rank stats are changing. This blog it seemed sat forever at 367 sites linking in but in the new update over the last few days it has risen to 506 sites, a nearly 38% jump — nice, thank you to all those new sites linking in.

The last couple Technorati rank updates I’ve seen the number of sites go down even though traffic to this site had increased which didn’t quite compute. I guess it’s possible that more sites have been linking in over Technorati’s last update or perhaps their algorithm or the number of sites they count has changed. Whatever the case, I don’t want to put a hex on the trend, so definitely not, not, not complaining here.

Just for comparison purposes, I checked out Alexa which shows 361 links. I still don’t think Alexa stats are very reliable for traffic analysis, but it is interesting comparing services against each other, especially considering Technorati and Alexa were only separated by six links until recently.

Another thing I find curious is after three years not a single Alexa starred user review of this site? I don’t remember leaving a review of any other site in Alexa, so maybe it’s rare to give/receive reviews? I guess this is my not so subtle way of saying if you have a few minutes in the next few days and want to leave a user review — good, bad or indifferent — it would be appreciated.

Review for Hmm, review for your domain (limit first 10 domains)
In fact, here’s the deal: if you create an Amazon/Alexa review for makeyougohmm.com and tell me about it in the comments below (and I can confirm a review shows up with your name), then I will visit your site and do the same for your domain. Put the domain you want me to review in your comment signature URL space in the comments below. Please no non-worksafe domains. I’m no prude, I don’t mind adult-oriented sites, in fact I continue to toy with the idea of publishing a non-worksafe version of Hmm where those type sites/URLs would be allowed, but want to keep this particular offer in this thread for mainstream, worksafe domains only. And no, it doesn’t have to be a blog domain, it can be any type of website as long as the content is worksafe.

In the interest of time and not to leave this swap reviews offer completely open-ended, I’m limiting this offer to the first 10 comments/domains/reviews. If it takes three plus years to accumulate that many reviews/requests, that’s cool, as we continue to track the comments all the way back to day one. Those interested, please remember to be completely honest — brutally kind or harsh — because you know I will be about your site. Not soliciting, nor will be delivering fluff three word, five star “I like it” reviews. This is a great chance for those who hate this site to get in their licks, or those who love it to sing praises. And just so it’s clear no matter what your review is like, it will not impact the review I leave for your domain. Lastly, no promises but if it makes me go hmm and I think it might make others go hmm there is always the possibility that it could be profiled here in a future post.

As for how to leave an Alexa/Amazon site review for MakeYouGoHmm.com? Just follow this link. You’ll need your Amazon login handy. I’m not sure how long it takes for these reviews to show up (guess we’ll find out). I have left Amazon reviews on products in the past and it seemed to me like there was some delay, perhaps to weed out spam and trash. Who knows, maybe they are running their own Mechanical Turk project on the reviews?

Rewind to Technorati Rank stats
This has been the most dramatic change/shift this blog has seen with Technorati rank stats. Did your blog stats change? Was it a dramatic or subtle change?

[From Eh List: Technorati has ranked this site 3,326 (an increase of 1,100) (1,077 links (an increase of 435) from 506 sites (an increase of 139) ) 6 as of Sat Jul 15 02:52:43 UTC 2006]

GottabeMobile.com poses a vexing Vista/Tablet PC question:

How much impact does Vista have on your planning and purchasing for a future Tablet PC have? How clear is your Vista?

Quick answer: My vista right now is muddy and the impact of Vista hinging on a future Tablet PC purchase is significant.

The first two years I spent waiting and wondering whether I should buy a Tablet PC and once I took the plunge I wish I had done it sooner. The next year or so was bliss and I blogged about a lot of the cool things I’ve learned how to do with the tablet and how we’ve been using the tablet in home and business. Unfortunately, shortly after a year of ownership I started having hardware problems (still am) and am currently considering three paths:

1. fix my out of warranty Tablet PC (an estimated “couple hundred dollars”)
2. buy a new Tablet PC (more expensive than #3)
3. buy a new non-tablet laptop

I guess there is a fourth option: do nothing and keep waiting, but that won’t work long term. Eventually a feature that I do use regularly on the tablet is going to fail and then I will have to go with #1.

I need to get the tablet back into 100% working mode again and/or replace it with something else. The problem with the current situation is software works fine, it’s that I can’t install anything from the CD. Fortunately most software can be installed over the network or by direct download. The tablet hardware and software besides the USB ports are all working good.

I’d put the chance of buying another tablet once Vista is out, tested and preinstalled at about 75%, although it is doubtful I’ll spend as much the second time around. I realize the public Vista beta stuff is an opportunity to check out Vista on my Tablet, but in its current semi-broken state, I didn’t want to risk it. Also, I’d prefer to see a final product before buying hardware that I think might/will/can run on it, especially when it is bound to cost more than $1,000. In the case of Tablet PCs, a really good one is still over $1,500. I wonder how many other existing tablet users are in the same situation?

Our oldest son wants a laptop too and he’ll most likely (I’d say 95% chance) be the recipient of option #3. I suggested to a Macbook and at first he didn’t like the idea but he must have done some more research because he’s come back to me liking that idea. The question for tablet vendors: why would I want to buy him an overpriced Tablet PC with a new OS still on the horizon?

Of course the Mac has the OSX 10.5 Leopard on the horizon too, but why does a new Apple OS seem less distracting than a new Windows?

And it’s not just portable machines, my dad is in the market for a new desktop machine. His existing desktop is a 486 (not a typo). Since he barely uses that (and who would) and opts for his new laptop, I told him to just wait until Vista comes out next year and buy a desktop system with Vista preinstalled.

Right now there’s no way I’d recommend buying a Tablet PC to friends, family or buy myself unless it was a really screaming deal. I had my sights on buying one of the middle of the road Ultra Mobile PC’s (UMPC) but haven’t seen any in stores and the prices have all been over $1,000 which was supposed to be the pricing ceiling. Discouraging. I might be willing to go that route as a more powerful upgrade from my Pocket PC, but then I’ve also been hearing rumors — completely unsubstantiated ones — that there might be some sort of portable Xbox?

I’m thinking it will be late Q1 2007, but maybe early Q2 before we actually see Vista on store shelves and this just gives consumers more reasons to look at other OS options. Who knows, maybe our next desktop machine will be with Linux?

We are going to be buying at least one new machine of some sort before year end and my guess is it will be a laptop with Windows on it and won’t be a tablet. You never know though. The tablet Force is strong, Luke.

I would like to try running Vista on my existing slate tablet but not the beta. That would have to be after the USB ports are repaired since I doubt I’ll be able to install Vista over the network.

As for what I’m using the tablet for since the last update? Not much new. I tried the speech recognition and I’ve made a few updates but mostly it’s been running as a secondary account for Second Life and IRC. Not even inking as much lately, although when I do my note program of choice remains OneNote.

Below I’ve added the pre-Tablet PC ownership post on December 15, 2004 to my ongoing chronology of Tablet PC ownership. That post outlines the 16 times I mentioned the Tablet PC in posts here spanning 1 1/2 years before pulling the trigger. I had been contemplating a tablet purchase prior to this blog being created with “I still have this on my wish list.”

It is curious looking back that my final comment to pull the trigger centered around the slate being good enough for an artist, so it would be good enough for me. My tablet adventures are far from over and in fact I’ll be teasing and wooing the tabletsphere soon with a significant tablet-oriented idea that has just passed the concept stage.

History of Tablet PC Ownership
July 26, 2003 - December 15, 2004: Chronology of tablet indecision (pre-tablet ownership)
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
August 12, 2005: 241 days of Tablet PC Ownership
September 1, 2005: Day 261: Tablet PC sales projections being downshifted by market researchers
September 15, 2005: Day 276 Current office main configuration includes Tablet PC, 3 PCs, Mac
October 12, 2005: Day 302 as Tablet PC owner: email, chat and gaming
December 13, 2005: Day 365: looking back at one year with a Tablet PC
January 22, 2006: Day 405: Dual monitor on Tablet PC alert!
Hardware problems begin
March 4, 2006: Day 445: Tablet I/O board problems
May 5, 2006 Day 508: 10% broken and easy to forget about Bluetooth
Day 577: New Tablet PC purchases being caught in the Vista waiting game

Have you checked out the return of Rocketboom v2.0 with new “interim host” Joanne Colan. If you haven’t caught her on MTV then the first thing you’ll notice is her strong accent.

I’ve followed Rocketboom more closely since the 1.0 breakup than ever before during 1.0 so my frame of reference and experience will not be nearly as good as hardcore RB fans. In fact, a search at Hmm for rocketboom yielded a mere eight results, half of them over the last two weeks.

I thought this return episode was OK. They could have done more with the tomato throwing (an attack of the killer tomatoes clip would have been cool).. Comments thus far seem overall guarded to positive on the RB site. There is a request in the episode telling former host Amanda Congdon she is welcome back “any time.”

I won’t spoil the rest of today’s video, go ahead and walk the plank and let us know what you think in the comments/trackback below. I’m interested in reading what you think, with the exception of the guy out there spamming his blogspot blog with ‘rocketboom updates’ (including on the RB video comments today).

Forget abut HD-DVD and Blu-Ray for now, imagine storing your entire collection on one piece of media. This has been the promise and allure of holographic storage, but there is another storage type that could be on the horizon beyond that.

Scientist Professor V Renugopalakrishna is working on a protein-based storage system:

The new protein-based DVD will have advantages over current optical storage devices such as the Blue-ray as well, because the information is stored in proteins that are only a few nanometres across.

“The protein-based DVDs will be able to store at least 20 times more than the Blue-ray and eventually even up to 50,000 gigabytes (about 50 terabytes) of information. You can pack literally thousands and thousands of those proteins on a media like a DVD, a CD or a film or whatever,” he said.

This is all wishful thinking at this point so don’t get too excited but it is fascinating imagining the demise of hard drives. And web based storage? Who would bother if/when they could carry around their entire life on a DVD? Piracy alarmists will not be psyched, but I’m sure there will be advances in anti-piracy and DRM long before protein-based storage does or does not become a real world option.

And it looks like we’re going to have to live through at least two more iterations of storage technology (HD-DVD/Blu-Ray and then holographic) before getting anywhere near these types of massive storage options. Expensive future for those who repeatedly keep buying the same media on newer, faster, better formats.