Spring is in the air

Well, it is in Dublin at least, and for now. This may change later of course. No, allow me to correct that. It WILL change later, naturally. It always rains here. The question is only when, and how much and for how long.

Anyhow, listened to TWiT Podcast 89 on my way into the office. I was sitting laughing in the car at times and got some weird stares from my fellow commuters who were still battling to wipe the sleep and grit from their eyes. Probably wondered what I had for breakfast.... Anyhow, they were reviewing Business 2.0's list of 25 Tech start-ups to watch, and it was a humorous debate, particularly with cranky John C. Dvorak there. The new young lady (can't remember her name Veronica I think, but she is from CNet's Buzz Out Loud team, was a great new addition. I must remember to have a look at Mebo and some of the others they mentioned. Sounded quite interesting. Have a look at the link. Last night on the way home they were commenting on the fact that Bill Gates has rationed his 10 year old daughter's 'screen time'. It was an interesting concept, because it is defined as 'screen' time, so no matter whether it is a game console, mobile phone, TV or computer screen. The combined time is limited. Also heard the same recently about a young lady here in Ireland dividing her daily ration of viewing time between TV and PC, with more and more seemingly being allocated to PC time with social networks, in this case it was Bebo, a student social network.

Yesterday I installed Me.dium. Uh uh. I know, I know. What did you do THAT for. Well, I did. It is a browser add on. I use Firefox, and it neatly fits in on the left side. When you log in, you type in your user name and password, and then you are invited to 'cross over'. Real spiritual. Now, all I have to do is get some friends onto it. Hmmm.. that could be difficult, don't have many friends. The idea is that you have a circle that shows you the sites you are logged onto and if any of your friends are online as well, you can share ideas and thoughts about the site. Could be a VERY small circle. So, a different form of social networking whilst you're browsing. Very interesting. Will it take off? Good question.

Will have a look at some of the stuff that Leo and the TWiTs chatted about this morning to see if there is anything interesting there. Am way behind on my RSS reading, but had to re-install FeedDemon onto this profile (had to change profiles on my computer - long story, so I won't bore you with it, but it means I still run up against bits and pieces every now and then that I haven't transferred. My favourite is National Geographic. The stories are fascinating and the photography stunning. Yes, I even have a subscription to the print edition and it is my favourite Christmas gift to young kids to teach them to love their environment. Must be my South African genes. :-) Either that, or I am just cheap, or too mean to spend time looking at something more original. Whichever it is, I don't care, I like giving the subscriptions.

My latest edition of Red Herring arrived on Zinio this morning (Zinio is an electronic book reader that allows you to subscribe to magazines and read them, on your computer. It uses a real magazine look and feel and even 'turns' the pages for you, and you can zoom in and out. The only gripe I have about it is that you cannot move it onto a second screen if you use Extended Desktop with 2 screens. It is stuck on the primary screen. My second gripe is that you only have one zoom mode, which is kind of annoying when you have screens of different sizes - you cannot set a zoom level that is comfortable for each screen. It is what it is. *Sigh* Oh well.

Some interesting comments in it about the impact of globalisation and how the recent fall in China had such a massive impact on stock markets across the globe. It certainly did. Wiped billions in value off the stock markets across the globe. Amazing how interlinked we have all become. A few decades ago China was that vast communist country on the other side of the world that was a potential threat to world peace, and now it is an economic powerhouse affecting us directly and indirectly. That reminds me of an experience last year. We had ordered furniture some years back from a local furniture store. Sort of old look but modern made, if you understand what I mean. I love old fashioned furniture. Beautifully crafted in France from Cherrywood. We then decided to add some pieces to that last year. When it arrived, guess where it had been shipped from? Correct. China. That same place that used to ship cheap plastic toys, was now shipping finely crafted wood furniture. And, I could not fault it. It was beautifully made to similar standards and quality as our first pieces. Rather amazing.

Anyhow, behind my back is beautiful sunshine, and I still have some more reading to do in my Red Herring and McKinseys Quarterly.

Must remember to give you some of my thoughts about my daughter and her log on DeviantArt, where she posts her graphics, pictures and also photos about herself. She hasn't even been a teenager for a year, and it starts.... *Sigh*. And, being the technophobe that I am, I can't even complain, but if there is anyone out there that has developed a small piece of software a father can install on a website that blocks evil minded little boys and dirty old men from viewing online pictures of their daughters, please let me know. I think I am in need of it. At times like this I am all in favour of censorship....