At the beginning of this year I made a pledge – a resolution if you will – to read 12 books. I did this for several reasons – I have never been much of a reader, I had books on my bookshelf I bought but never read, seeing my wife reading books all the time... you get the picture. As 2007 closes, I am pleased to say I met my goal.

I decided to tie these books into my newly-launched blog, and would write something on each one as I read it. Some of the books had been in print for many years, so writing a review would be no good, plus there are book reviews elsewhere. Instead I decided to personalize my responses by writing what I took away from each book. I would conclude my takeaways with whether or not I recommend the book for others to read, as I felt there would be a chance I didn’t like the book.

As I read each book, what would I do with them? My bookshelf was runneth over with books, documentation and of course sports memorabilia. As I was now a book reader, more shelf space was required. So rather than have these books become like trophies on the mantelpiece, I decided to give them away. Once I finished a book and wrote my takeaways, it was promptly sent off to someone who I felt it appropriate to them. Sometimes this was via my wife who became interested in my newfound passion, but they have all left my office and are in the hands of others.

It would not be appropriate to sum up a year’s effort without stats. Of the 12 books I read, only 5 were in my possession at the beginning of the year. One book was given to me by the author, a friend, and another was given to me by the city of Chicago (along with several thousand others I presume). Two books I heard about from articles I read, and one was mentioned in several of the other books I read. One book I read via email messages from the DailyLit service, and 1 was book was authored by someone with the same name as me.

You can read all of the book takeaways and supporting posts under the “Book Take-Aways” category, always available on the sidebar of The Hot Iron. Now onto writing my 12th takeaway post, then starting my first book for 2008!

Book Take-Aways • Diversions • (2) Comments • Permalink

Guess who owns vista.com and schwagwhore.com? Hint – they are owned by separate entities.

One may think vista.com is owned by Microsoft in conjunction with their much-maligned operating system Windows Vista. However that is not the case – it is owned by online printer VistaPrint who purchased the domain name from Innuity, Inc. for $1.25 million. As of this writing the main domain name for VistaPrint is vistaprint.com, and vista.com redirects to it. This was a wise move by VistaPrint, as they can still leverage the Vista portion of their brand if they evolve from printed products.

I had looked up schwagwhore.com on a whim, shortly after getting my first shipment from StartupSchwag.com. Schwag is a term commonly applied to the items you will get at a trade show emblazoned with the logos – and Web sites – of the company handing them out. As I tend to collect a lot of schwag at conferences, I have been called a “schwag whore” before. Much to my surprise the name is registered to Turner Broadcasting. According to Domain Tools schwagwhore.com was registered earlier this year. It currently does not resolve to anything. Not sure why they have this one; perhaps a story they covered included the term in it?

Just a couple of stories from the wonderful world of domaining!

Domain Names • (1) Comments • Permalink

Several years ago at a networking event, someone told me I had to be on Ryze, a business-oriented social networking. As I am usually signing up for one service or another every day, I created an account and setup a basic profile. And that was it.

Since then, I get a weekly email message with my Ryze “stats” including how many people have viewed my profile, etc. After about a year of those emails, I revisited my profile and added to it, copying and pasting pretty much verbatim from my LinkedIn profile.

So anyone else out there using it?

Business • (2) Comments • Permalink

I just got word from Tim Courtney the next Silicon Prairie Social will be held on Thursday, January 24, 2008 at Mullen’s Bar and Grill in Lisle, IL. This is second in what I hope will be an on-going quality tech networking event for the western suburbs of Chicago.

The event is free, though you must register, and registration is now open. Check out the Web site for full details. Unfortunately I won't be there myself, but I have RSVPed in spirit. There is also the opportunity to become a sponsor, joining an excellent list of current sponsors. For those in the burbs, it is a must attend, and as well for those of us in the city - as we are all part of the local tech community.

Business • Technology • (0) Comments • Permalink

At one point last week as I was scrambling to put together the list of recipients for Dunkirk Systems’ holiday cards, I needed to go to LinkedIn to look up a couple of contacts. When I arrived at the social networking site I saw a familiar face, a wizard image LinkedIn puts up when it takes the service down for maintenance. When I went back after the maintenance window, I was pleasantly surprised to see more familiar faces.

If you have a LinkedIn account and you visit the home page, you can see updates to people in your network. As I have previously stated, this is a highly valuable feature of LinkedIn as you can find out changes for contacts, including if they have a new job. Now these changes include if a person has added a photo to their profile. The accompanying image is a partial screen grab from my own LinkedIn home page, showing networking guru Jason Jacobsohn recently added a photo to his profile.

This is a good step forward for LinkedIn, and as competition heats up from other social networking sites like Facebook, I am eager to see what other changes they will make.

Business • Technology • (1) Comments • Permalink