Friday, June 08, 2007
 I read on the Mashable blog this morning about the release of version 9 of the Netscape browser. What? They still make a Netscape browser?
Netscape was the original browser, born from the original NCSA Mosaic graphical browser created at the University of Illinois. Then along came Microsoft, and Netscape fell by the way. AOL bought it, then spun off the codebase to the Mozilla Foundation, and Firefox was its new offspring. I am simplifying this story, but trying to make the point that Netscape has become the forgotten one.
As a Web developer who may have users of Web sites I develop, I will download and try it. Of course I will run it on a secondary workstation, just like I do Internet Explorer 7. If I haven’t said it before, I am loyal to Firefox and its sibling the Thunderbird email program.
Let me know if anyone reading will be installing Netscape!
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 06/08/07 at 06:14 AM
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Monday, June 04, 2007
 Is it getting better for Palm? Apparently so, as today it was announced that the mobile device manufacturer sold a 25% stake in itself to Elevation Partners, a private equity firm who counts as one of its partners Bono, the lead singer of U2.
This announcement makes it a beautiful day for Palm, as not only are they getting some star power, but some horsepower in management. Apple’s former top hardware engineer Jon Rubenstein, who ran the iPod division for 2 years, will walk on to the Palm board as Executive Chairman. My guess is he had nothing to do with last week’s announcement of the already much maligned Palm Foleo which may be destined to be a lemon.
If you look at the corporate history of Palm, it seems like it still hasn’t found what it’s looking for. Take the spinoff of its software division, the manufacturer of the Palm operating system, then to only license it back from its new owners. You have to wonder with repeated moves like this over the years where did it all go wrong?
As a loyal Palm user until the end of the world, I take pride and welcome this move like a summer rain. Hopefully today’s announcement will be like New Year’s Day for Palm, and not a day too soon with the announcement of the Apple iPhone’s release on June 29. If Palm doesn’t act soon, it may be stuck in a moment that it can’t get out of.
Ok, now tell me how many U2 songs I referenced in this post!
(The accompanying photo is a picture of Bono I snapped from Google Images with my Treo 680, then I took a picture of the Treo with my digital camera.)
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 06/04/07 at 04:30 PM
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Last Friday I had 2 appointments, and like most entrepreneurs they were at coffee shops. Each shop offered WiFi, with their own access method and process – which is more of the norm than the exception today.
My first stop was Caribou Coffee who offers free WiFi, providing you buy something. The barista will give you a code upon request that you will need to enter into the default Web page that comes up when you log into your computer. The code is only good for one hour, but you can get another code upon request. My guess is that it is at the discretion of the staff, and buying more should help you get a new code.
Starbucks was my second stop, and they use T-Mobile’s HotSpot service. As I am a T-Mobile customer, I pay an extra $10 a month for HotSpot on top of the $20 I pay for data service for my Treo smartphone. If I didn’t have T-Mobile or its data service, I would have to pay a daily fee under $10 or a monthly fee around $30.
Before I left for my meetings I saw this article on the cost of unused WiFi service, and I could relate to it. Had my meetings been elsewhere, I may have had to pay a different way, or not at all if I went to a forward-thinking locale. There is certainly money to be made from Internet access, and it makes sense to be forward-thinking for how you yourself will use the Internet and plan ahead as to where you go and how you connect.
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 06/04/07 at 10:59 AM
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Sunday, June 03, 2007
 Congrats to my good friend and colleague Eric Patel and all of the team at the DJ Mix Academy in Boston for their mention in this Sunday’s New York Times! They were mentioned in the article, Mix, Scratch and Spin: You, Too, Can Become a D.J.
DJ Mix Academy is the only school in New England where you can, in an interactive classroom setting, learn to DJ. Most DJs out there learned in college or on their own. The instructors are all accomplished DJs who not only share techniques but their stories, which are usually worth more than the tuition price! They have extended their programs with the Global DJ Mix Academy, where you can receive CDs, DVDs and instructional manuals and self-study. To extend this virtual campus, I am proud to be still involved with DMA as “interactive media director” and consult them on the Internet, all the while listening in on those DJ stories.
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 06/03/07 at 02:18 PM
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Saturday, June 02, 2007
 Am I a nerd? Isolating my technical knowledge, I would consider myself a moderate nerd. My guess is that friends and clients would rate it much higher. I have always considered myself a generalist, balancing both technical and business knowledge, and making me the Internet professional I am today!
So I could not resist taking a Nerd Test that I read about on Cshel’s blog. And how did I do? I got a 67. I attribute the score to my lack of knowledge of the periodic table, owning a simple calculator and not having a biohazard logo in my bedroom (hey, it doesn’t really match my wife’s décor!).
Give the short survey a try – how did you do?
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 06/02/07 at 06:18 AM
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Thursday, May 31, 2007
Just as I was pondering how I should categorize all of my blog feeds into folders in Google Reader, I got tagged by Cartoon Barry on how I use Google Reader for reading and managing RSS feeds.
As I mentioned before, I have only used Google Reader for managing feeds, and tried to
keep that number to around 200 – and it is at 217 today, with a few added and deleted over the last several weeks. The opening message on the Trends page of the Reader states, “From your 217 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 2,862 items, starred 1 items, and shared 0 items.” Wow, that many?
Here’s what my reading looks like over the last 30 days:
Trying to maintain a balance of work and life, I don’t read feeds as much on the weekends, and if I do it is using the Reader on my Treo, which by its nature and design is much slower than reading in a browser.
The times of the day that I read most often did not surprise me:
For those who know me, I am not a morning person, so I rise early, get caffeinated and catch up on email and feeds prior to the start of the work day.
For the days of the week that I read, this also was not surprising:
Some days it seems like there are more feeds than others, but that is just a gut feel. I know recently my postings have been on a less regular schedule, and that has been more related to the projects I have been working on.
This is the first time I have been tagged, so now I really feel like a blogger! To keep this going, I will tag the following people – Daniel Sitter, Matt Maldre and David Dalka. I’m not sure what readers they use, but neither did Cartoon Barry.
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 05/31/07 at 07:16 AM
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007
While taking a break from the keyboard over the holiday weekend, I went for a walk and saw this object and took a photo of it.
It is a barrier in the parking lot of the University of Wisconsin – Fox Valley in Menasha, WI. There were several of these barriers that were comprised of what appeared to be a planter with a large PVC pipe with quotations.
The quotation reads, “The biggest obstacle to change is a successful past. Unknown”
Unfortunately this person is unknown, as I would like to know what experiences in life drew them to this conclusion.
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 05/30/07 at 08:43 AM
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Friday, May 25, 2007
Have you ever had a hard time using a Web site? That frustration where you feel you should be able to do something a certain way on a Web page? I did not ask for a call of hands as I am sure everyone reading this has experienced it, no matter your level of experience with the Internet. This is compounded when someone else has no problem using the Web page.
My good friend Peter forwarded me an email exchange he had with LinkedIn’s customer support, where he reported about changes made to the presentation of the list of your connections. He is unable to read it… as JAWS is unable to read it. JAWS is screen reader software that Peter uses to not only access the Internet but to use his Windows PC. For example, when he presses the Start button, a voice that sounds a lot like the electronic voice of Stephen Hawking reads every item on the menu, and continues reading as he uses his computer.
This software is essential for him as he has retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, an eye condition that has significantly reduced Peter’s eyesight. RP did not hinder Peter from getting a masters degree from Harvard, travel the world solo to do the research for his masters thesis or run the Boston Marathon. However I have personally witness him, and JAWS, have a hard time find the “buy” button on many eCommerce Web sites.
In his dialogue with LinkedIn, Peter inferred that their changes to the My Connections page were an intentional error on their part. We talked afterwards and I shared with him my take that I was extremely confident that it was not, and most likely they did not even consider people who use screen readers or test for them when they released these changes. I am not bashing fellow Web designers and developers, but merely am pointing out what is a difficult part of this industry – developing Web sites and Web applications that are truly usable by all users on all devices. Getting a Web site to look and function the same across Internet Explorer and Firefox is just scratching the surface on this issue.
It was with Peter in mind that I decided not to use captchas on The Hot Iron and instead use manual moderation of comments. I have had Peter try Web sites with JAWS to test their usability. Where this one issue with LinkedIn has held him back a bit, he is able to use all other functions on the site and is growing his connections. This is something to keep in mind as people define their potential target markets for their Internet-based businesses.
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 05/25/07 at 07:12 AM
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Thursday, May 24, 2007
 With the upcoming spin-off of Chrysler from DaimlerChrysler, we will surely see less of the chairman of the parent company, Dr. Dieter Zetsche. A brilliant engineer and executive in his own right, he led the merger and now divestiture of the German and American automakers.
Most Americans first saw the chairman in TV commercials, referred to as Dr. Z, as well as his own animated Web site, Ask Dr. Z. I have to admit, when I first saw this, I thought it was a joke – would you expect someone in his role to be doing sketch comedy, or be an animated character? But a little research found this to be true. The ad campaign did not prove to be that successful and was short-lived.
The Web site remains, however, as of this posting, so check it out while you can.
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 05/24/07 at 09:02 AM
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Wednesday, May 23, 2007
 Everybody has an opinion of Microsoft Corporation. Where you hear a lot of the negative comments, there are many positive ones as well. Myself, I have made a decent living working with Microsoft technology. That being said, I am “multilingual” and work with various Internet-based technologies, choosing the one best suited for my clients’ needs.
Recently my wife, a marketing manager, attended a Microsoft event for the launch of Office 2007. The event was targeted to marketing professionals. The photo in this post shows the takeaways from the event, or what I like to call swag.
It wasn’t clear by the design and wording on the CD packaging that this truly was a full-blown, free license of Office 2007, which was the impression my wife had. Well it is, but I had to install it first to find that out. As for the giant Hershey Kiss… yes, they simply used a label machine to print “Microsoft Office 2007” labels and slap them on the top of the box (click on the photo to see a larger photo). Apparently the candy was an afterthought, and that was about as much thought that went into it
Based on my years of experience with Microsoft, I always considered them a marketing company that happened to make software. These items have changed that opinion somewhat. I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but this gift will take some education for me to harness its features and power.
Posted by Mike Maddaloni on 05/23/07 at 06:48 AM
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