Do you use Outlook?[1]

Do you read News (and especially Ecademy Weblogs?)

Then you need NewsGator - the Outlook News Aggregator

[1] you fools!, whoops sorry
[from: JB Ecademy]

We need a mozilla sidebar that shows trails through the web. eg

People who viewed this page,
went here next:-
- URL1 1505
- URL2 723
- URL3 532

and came from here:-
- URL4 2323
- URL5 967
- URL6 375

This was inspired by Matt Jones, riffing on the implications of the Google acquisition of Blogger.com

GOOGLE ARE BUILDING THE MEMEX.
They've got one-to-one connections. Links. Now they've realised - like Ted Nelson - that the fundamental unit of the web isn't the link, but the trail. And the only place that's online is... weblogs. [from: JB Ecademy]

Omni Gives Away Wireless :

Omni Hotels in the USA have decided to give away WiFi access in all their hotels.

What makes it all possible is the relatively low cost of installing the wireless network. Even with a "fairly sophisticated site survey," said Sternitzke, it still is possible to do a wireless installation for about 70 percent less than the cost of a wired in-room solutions. On average, Core can roll out wireless in a hotel for about $70 a room. [from: JB Wifi]

Here comes the walkie-talkie cell phone - Computerworld this article is talking about US carriers starting to offer a walkie talkie function on cellphones. Can someone explain to me the tech behind this? Lots of people have asked over the years whther it was possible for cellphones to work peer to peer and communicate directly instead of going via a carrier's mast. Is that the idea here? Or is it about instant connections between phones but going via the carrier?

I have to say that direct connections in the style of walkie talkies would be really cool and would be very appealing to Teens.

Of course the last big question is whether this capability requires new phones or if it can somehow be bolted onto existing phones with a download. [from: JB Wifi]

Coming live from the Power Networking Lunchtime Event.

Note these are my words.

First up is Charles Cohen, (founder of Beenz). I have a funny memory of Beenz. At the height of the dotcom boom, I'm outside a Starbucks in the SOMA district of San Francisco. 3 kids with skateboards stopped me and pressed a Beenz postcard into my hands.

For most dotcom entrepreneurs the biggest audience they've had is in a courtroom. Beenz gave £10m back to the investors and avoided this infamy. When it failed there were no jobs for ex-entrepreneurs. Somebody said "why not write a book", but the last thing he wanted to do was to knife anyone in the back. Writing down 10 ideas and giving them to a publisher who said I'll have number 2. Which turned out to be "What happens when a corporate turns against itself". And then Enron happened! Anyway, publishers produce too many copies, in too short print runs and distribute through 3 channels. so it's a 98-2 rule where the publishers don't know what succeeds. So if you can afford it, do it, just don't expect anything back.

Next is David Taylor http://www.nakedleader.com.
The message is "Success could be anyone's. The conspiracy says success is hard and is for other people. Actually it's for anyone". Joke aside: What would have happened if an IT director had been running the Titanic? It would have missed the iceberg by 2 years.

I started reading books I'd bought. I decided that success is actually a formula. Every single book on success is full of hype. But underlying them all there is actually a simple answer.

If you want to achieve success, know where you are, know where you want to go to, know how to get there, and then do it.

If you do what you've always done, you'll stay where you've always been.

The people who get on are the people who celebrate and push harder when they hear the word "No".

Mike Southon 'The Beermat Entrepreneur',
If you want to write a book, get a proper author. cue Chris West. Approach friends and mentors first with the manuscript. Then approach the publishers.

Stick to your guns. If you know what you want to say, say it, and don't water it down. Some people will always disagree.

Right a book that people will want to read.

Create the network effect.

Very important to get the title right.

The meaning of life. What success brings you is freedom. Which brings us to Mike Fab'Gear.
- Have as much fun as you can
- Spread some good karma

Q&A?
- VCs are good for early stage, high growth. The big mistake in the late 90s was VCs investing in startups.
- Charles. Writing a book was a rest. Now I start companies
- Mike. The book is the best calling card I've got. There's no money in publishing. I make the money from consultancy
- David. Don't expect the publisher to do any marketing until you don't need it.
- David. What makes my heart sing. Emails from people who've read the book and have changed their life. Not having to commute to a corporate. Mike. Working from home instead of endless corporate travel. Charles. Helping entrepreneurs. note: Entrepreneurs wnat to change the world. VCs want to get 20 times return. That's the disconnect.
- Where's the technical recession going? Charles: Big mistake in the 90s was putting the technologists on the board. Of course technology will come back. Needs to be a tool for business not the business itself. Mike: There'll be another dislocation where a lot more normal people get the point. Tech will be back. It's just a question of timing.
- David: We've spent huge quantities of money on people. An organization's only asset is its people.
- Charles: My definition of failure is when you stop trying.
- Mike: A story about an entrepreneur who said, "I would have been nicer to people".
- David: Hope for strong reactions from people to your book, You want people to either love it or hate it.
[from: JB Ecademy]

Ed Daniels has written a great little piece for the Oxfordshire Ecademy - Forum on ways of using Ecademy.
You get back what you put in... It deserves a wider audience. [from: JB Ecademy]

silicon.com - UK gets 'virtually' free wireless hot spots : Sandwich bar chain Benugo has established wireless hot spots at two of its London stores, in partnership with wireless communications firm Broadscape.

When they make a purchase, customers will be given an access code that allows them to log into the wireless network for up to 30 minutes, letting them check email and surf the web.

The two stores are located at St Johns Street, Clerkenwell and at Berwick Street, Soho. Benugo hopes to boost trade at these outlets by offering this free high-speed wireless access to its customers.

Interesting approach to making a "free" service work. Make a purchase, get 30 minutes free access. [from: JB Wifi]

Slashdot | Joltage Powers Down : "Wi-Fi service provider Joltage sent a e-mail to subscribers that read "It is with regret that I am writing to inform you that Joltage will be discontinuing its Wi-Fi subscriber and provider services effective at the end of this month." This could have been very cool, but due to economy and lack of subscriber participation they are no longer able to finance their operations."

It seems that Joltage found that the market for hotspots growing too slowly for their model to work. that doesn't necessarily mean that the market as a whole won't work, but it probably does mean that any player planning this sort of distributed, franchise model needs deep pockets to get from here to profitability. [from: JB Wifi]

Starwood, Intel bring Wi-Fi to hotels :
Hotel chain Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide and chipmaker Intel announced Wednesday an agreement to make wireless Internet access available in more than 150 Sheraton, Westing and W hotels in the United States.

Another major Hotel chain announces WiFi support for its guests targeted at business travellers with laptops. Presumably they'll be charging business rates as well.

Back in the dotcom days I stayed in the W in San Francisco. Great and very expensive hotel that had ethernet broadband (as well as a playstation and CD-Radio) in every room. WiFi is a natural fit and I'm almost surprised they haven't done it already. [from: JB Wifi]

You'd have to be completely cut off to miss the fact that at least 10m people worldwide marched against war over the last weekend.

So we've all registered our objection to a fighting and killing war lead by the USA and UK into Iraq.

But now what? Saddam is still there. The Iraqi people are still dying. From lack of food, lack of clean water, chemical weapon residues, depleted uranium residues, at the hands of Saddams henchmen, US bombs in the No-Fly zone and from internecine strife between the minorities.

It's time for the same people who marched to start coming up with alternatives that will make Iraq and the Middle East a better place.

"Make Tea Not War" was a great slogan, but tea won't help Iraq.

So how about an honest humanitarian aid program for Iraq. Drop the sanctions, and start pouring non-partisan, non-political aid into Iraq. Start bolstering the bourgeoisie with economic trade at a level below the government. I firmly believe that the only long term solution to dictatorship is the rise of a wealthy and educated middle class. Preventing that via economic isolation is a recipe for guaranteeing the perpetuation of the existing situation. If we're to have UN led sanctions they should be on the sale of weapons to Iraq not the sale of basic lifestuff. [from: JB Ecademy]

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time

Gosh. Pyra have done as much as anyone to promote blogging with their centralized tool blogger.com and their free blog hosting at blog*spot. Google brings some huge infrastructure and capacity to bear on providing all this as a service. But beyond that it's pretty hard to see what they gain.

I wonder what the deal was and what the Blogger crew made out of it. [from: JB Ecademy]

If you want to meet Thomas (or anyone else)
1) Go to their profile page.
2) Choose Meetings from the profile menu
3) Click on the day you want to meet on the calendar (Say Mon Mar 3)
4) Pick a slot when Thomas appears to be free and click on the "+" button.

Clearly you can navigate around the diary looking at day, week, month views or using the calendar in the top right to find that elusive free slot.

In writing this I found a couple of bugs that make this work rather better now. [from: JB Ecademy]

Reasons NOT to march tomorrow

1) You believe that bombing Iraq back to the stone age in a first strike attack on a sovereign nation, is the best way to stop an evil dictatorship with weapons of mass destruction and clear links to terrorist groups and that represents a clear and present danger to the western way of life. Regardless of the consequences.

Well if that's your belief, then fine.

2) You don't want to be associated with the groups organizing the march.

Well to quote a Labour party member. "The overwhelming majority of those taking part will be decent people who probably voted for us in the last election". The more ordinary decent people who turn up, the harder it will be for the media to spin the march into being just a few hard left, pro-palestinian loonies. March for "Capitalists against the war", "Skateboarders against the war", "Jews for Justice for Palestinians" or any one of hundreds of alternatives.

3) I want to watch the Rugby.

Oh come on! You've got a video recorder haven't you? Rugby is only a game, and like football, this is about life and death.

4) I live too far from London.

There are marches in 528 cities world wide. You can surely find somewhere nearer to you.

5) Someone's got to mind the kids.

Bring them with you. This isn't going to be violent. They'll have a great day out.

6) I'm afraid of crowds.

At the last march we meandered around side streets, crossing and re-crossing the official route. Take a tube to Tottenham Court road, Green park, Oxford Circus or Marble arch and just be on the outskirts. You probably will want to avoid the official rallying points at Gower St and Embankment

7) I'm working.

Take the day off and convince the boss to shut down and let everyone attend. Yes, but the cows will need milking. Well, you managed to walk on the countryside march didn't you? So it's ok to bomb Iraq just as long as you can go on killing foxes?

8) There'll be nowhere to park and I haven't got a congestion charge permit.

That's Monday! There are plenty of places to park on the outskirts of London near tube and rail stations.

9) I've never marched and I don't intend to start now.

Uh-huh. Just for once in your life how about standing up and being counted. Maybe you think that it won't make a difference? Well it probably won't but that's no reason not to try. Every little helps.

10) Blunkett has put us on Code Red and I'm scared that someone will shoot down an airliner that will plough into Hyde Park killing everyone there who hasn't already died from a Ricin attack on the tube system.

Yeah, right, whatever.

11) That many people will ruin the grass in Hyde Park and frighten the hedgehogs.

Collect some snails and slugs and send them to Tessa Jowell c/o The Department of Culture, Media and Sport who I'm sure will know what to do with them to aid our brave hedgehogs.

12) Between now and 12:30 tomorrow, Saddam Hussein goes into exile in Mauritania after a bloodless coup. The UN, USA, UK, France, Germany and Russia declare a 10 year multi billion dollar humanitarian aid program for Iraq in support of the new regime, funded from a windfall tax on oil profits. The interim government promises democratic elections in a month. All UN sanctions are lifted.

Then march in celebration instead of protest.

So what's your reason for not marching? [from: JB Ecademy]

Absolutely brilliant film from the Sundance online film festival. S-11 Redux It's a cut up of US media reporting.

In other "War" news, Joho The Blog has an open letter from Charlie Clements, a public health physician and a human rights advocate after a 10-day emergency mission to Iraq with other public health experts to assess the vulnerability of the civilian population to another war. [from: JB Ecademy]

After struggling to find anyone out there, these guys are one of the few ADSL broadband providers in the UK that have no objections to you sharing bandwidth via WiFi.

www.yesmate.com

Minimum term (1 month), cost - £25.52 + VAT per month (=£29.99). Activation is currently £29.99 inc VAT.
[from: JB Wifi]

It looks like BT have launched the Voyager 2000 Home WiFi package. There's also an article in the Guardian today about this. [from: JB Wifi]

Why I'll be marching on Saturday.

Mostly, large scale armed conflict is just *so* twentieth century.

I feel very, very confused by all this.

I weep for the Kurds, the Marsh Arabs, the Kosovans, The Argentinians, the Irish (both Catholic and Protestant), The Palestinians, The Israelis, The East Timor people, The Afghanis, for the ordinary people who just want to eat and drink and laugh. Who never asked to be caught up in a war about concepts, lines of ink on a map, or to be casualties of some Great Game.

I don't know what happened in Kosovo or why we had to bomb seven shades of hell out of them. But I've driven through there and even though I was attacked by some old bat dressed in black with a broom for being in the wrong loo at the wrong time, I don't bear them any ill will.

I've drunk Raki with a Turk within 50 miles of the Iraqi border and I wouldn't wish him and his friends any harm.

I've turned a beet into supper after it was given to me by an Iranian farmer. He was OK.

I've drunk mint tea and eaten hunza apricots with Afghanis in a hole-in-the-wall tea shop in Herat. It's undoubtedly flattened now and most of them are probably dead. But they were OK.

I gave a lift to an Afghani with his ancient Lee Enfield in the Spin Boldak pass. He was OK too.

So if you tell me that Saddam and Saddam's regime in Iraq is probably not the best thing that could happen to the Iraqi people or to countries round them, I'd probably agree.

But if you tell me that the *only* solution to the problem is a Blitzkrieg of cruise missiles, stealth bombers and a Dresden style flattening of Baghdad, then I can't agree.

My favourite anti-war cartoon Get Your War On has it nailed. Two people are talking on the phone.

>Sorry. I've been ranting. I didn't even ask how you're doing. Is your brother-in-law over there yet?

>He left last week. My sister is totally freaking out. I'm like "What? - you don't want your husband engaged in small-arms combat on the streets of Baghdad?" she said "What? - You think there are gonna be any streets there by the time we touch down?"

>Wait a minute - where will the kids play if there aren't any streets?

And that's why I'll be marching on Saturday.

It's not because I particularly agree with the Far left, Radical Islam, CND, Student activists, Jesse Jackson or any of the other political groups that have hijacked that side of the debate. And it's not because I necessarily disagree with all of the right wing, propaganda machine that is trying to tell us that those are the only people who are against the war. It's because I don't believe that in 2003 a war against Iraq would make the world a better place for the people who live in it; either in general or specifically in the middle east.

Now my confusion comes because I'm willing to accept that a bit of gun boat diplomacy may have an outcome that improves the lot of the Iraqi people and by implication, us. It may be that a vigorous opposition to corrupt, undemocratic, power hungry regimes with little respect for human rights is a good thing.

But I still can't condone the first strike invasion of a sovereign state on the basis that they might do some thing, some day. Or even that they did some thing in the past.

If you feel the same way, then get off your arse for once and spend Saturday in London. And bring the kids. It's their future we're marching for. The more ordinary people from ordinary homes with ordinary politics that turn up, the less the inevitable smears and propaganda will work.

[edited to add] There's a BBC debate tonight which will allow web, sms and email talk back with some polls. Make sure you vote. [from: JB Ecademy]

Another Wireless hot spot provider touches down in the UK. Surf and Sip Locations Found has 31 locations currently in the UK with lots more coming. And £5 for 24 hours for casual use. [from: JB Wifi]

Latest issue of Get Your War On is out. As usual they totally nail it.

>Sorry. I've been ranting. I didn't even ask how you're doing. Is your brother-in-law over there yet?

>He left last week. My sister is totally freaking out. I'm like "What - you don't want your husband engaged in small-arms combat on the streets of Baghdad?" she said "What - You think there are gonna be any streets there by the time we touch down?"

>Wait a minute - where will the kids play if there aren't any streets?

March on Saturday. Just be there.

You know how on the internet there's just never enough interesting new stuff to read? well this page should solve that problem.

Technorati: Top 100 Interesting Newcomers : Ranked by proportion of new links from blogs in the last 24 hours

Basically it's a list of weblogs tracked by Technorati where the number of blogs that link to them has rapidly increased. That's quite a good indication that the blogs are interesting and worth reading.

One side of Ecademy I'd really like to improve is to increase the number of sites that link to us. If you can help this in any way because you run a website or have influence over someone who does, please link to Ecademy. [from: JB Ecademy]