Steve Jobs 2.0: kinder, gentler, funnier

Steve Jobs whose unrelenting quest for perfection has driven many to Ole Tennessee or an asylum (whichever is closer) is showing signs of a kinder, gentler self, happy to share (within limits) the glory, and espousing the virtues of team work.



read more | digg story

Brandy, Dad

Brandy, Dad
Originally uploaded by chrisholland

The Wedding pics are finally all up on flickr, in 3 separate sets: 1, 2, 3

The Ninja Slams Pirates 2 and 3

The Ninja just destroys these movies. Hilarious. Be sure to watch the special message at the end to Bob Iger, President of Disney.



read more | digg story

IBDOM is out!

IBDOM: The Library
Introductory post
Ajaxian Coverage

Interview with Founders of Webby-Award-Winning Wikitravel

On the heels of Wikitravel's Webby Award, founders Evan and Michele took the time to share with us the personal, human and technological adventures they continue to share with "Fifty thousand of their closest friends!". Learn about the passion, focus and relentless dedication it took to launch and nurture a community of Wikitravelers.



read more | digg story

For Mac users Joost Is Error-Prone

Joost seems to have problems on Intel-based Macs. Many contributing to an enormous Joost forum thread under the header “I can’t get the application to run. What do I do?” We don’t see much in the way of useful responses from Joost.



read more | digg story

Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

Kevin Rose, digg founder, decides to go down with the ship :o



read more | digg story

iPhone Shopping Widget

i can't help but think This Shopping Widget would be a great addition to the widgets that ship with the iPhone. Though, the form factor could use some rework, the right-sliding drawer be moved to a bottom-sliding position, or overlay the listings, or be removed.

The idea of course is to be able to do some basic comparison shopping from the iPhone, in a snappy, uncluttered interface giving users access to 3 online marketplaces: eBay, Shopping.com and Amazon.com.

Also: Shop for an iPhone when it comes out.

Mac OS X Leopard Delayed to meet iPhone Targets

Apple shifted developers from leopard to the iPhone team. The result: Leopard delayed to October, and the iPhone in late June.



read more | digg story

Cryptic message for all 2001 Space odyssey fans

somebody is installing cryptic tiles in heavily trafficked roads. No one knows who, how, or why.



read more | digg story

Your resume might be hurting your chances of getting an interview.

The Acronym Soup Phenomenon (ASP) is what many techies fall victim to when putting together their resumes. An engineering manager of a Southern California Internet company explains why listing any and all technologies and programming languages that you've ever come in contact with could be hurting your chances of getting an interview.



read more | digg story

New Beginnings

This last year's been a wild ride.

Got Engaged.
Turned 30.
Hired Architect with Brandy.
Mom got cancer.
Mom beat cancer.
Left EarthLink. Joined Internet Brands.
Dad got married.
We got married! \o/
Honeymooned. Got PADI-certified for open-water scuba diving.

... and this week Dave Watson will be presenting his (hopefully) final working drawings to the City of Hermosa Beach, while the Coastal Commission is doing its thing. We'll also be giving working drawings to 3 contractors bidding our project. We're applying for a construction loan. Then we'll have to find a place to live for about a year.

If all goes according to plan, we're looking at a big tear-down party early June or late May.

In the midst of all this and increasing workaholism, i've visibly not kept-up with any sort of sustained blogging. What little I've posted has often been about "work stuff". I'm also no-longer contributing to TheAppleBlog.

While EarthLink wasn't quite ready to let just about any employee ramble about apps they build, we just created a couple of new semi-sanctioned blogs at The New Gig, thru which i'll likely be channeling the geekier stuff, hoping to be joined by a few of my peers:

Internet Brands Developer blog: Typically about developing applications, technologies, and developers.

The aptly-named "CarsDirect Used Car Site Blog" seeks to get some feedback about our newly-redesigned used cars marketplace.

We'll see what 2007 has in store ... Married Life, New Home?, Kids? Diving! Work! While I was busting my hump at EarthLink, it was, I feel, a mere warm-up to what i've experienced and will gleefully endure at Internet Brands.

And then there's this thing.

Barcamp Los Angeles 3 Wrap-Up

I posted stuff we did at Barcamp Los Angeles 3 over at ibbydev.

Good times :)

Barcamp Los Angeles 3 Coming Up!

I'll be missing Saturday due to a prior engagement, but will be at Barcamp Los Angeles 3 Sunday, hoping to attend a lot of good sessions.

I had a blast at last year's Barcamp LA... That prezo tried to convey hopes we could soon stop relying on phone numbers to communicate with each-other, with all Web documents encoding SIP contact information in microformats, ready to be picked-up by smarter devices that could not only read that information, but also store it in their local address book, and enable the user to contact a person over SIP. One key reason we're still somewhat shackled to phone companies today, is that we depend on phone numbers.

Back then, I was working at EarthLink. After 8 good years there, last November, I joined Internet Brands, Inc, trading a 1+ hour commute each way for ... 15 minutes each way, and opening-up a new chapter in my career, with a brand new set of challenges and opportunities.

2007 should be a wild ride for IB. And we'll be needing more help. With this in mind, we'll be sponsoring Barcamp LA 3, hoping to connect with the L.A. geek community. We're hiring!

See also: Seeking Web User Interface Engineer.

Also hiring: Manager of Search Engine Optimization

Also hiring: Java Developer

Best Used Cars Search ... Ever Built? :)

After a few intense months, we've finally launched what could potentially be the best Used Cars Search application ... on the Internet ...

I know, those are fighting words. But when you think about it, "buying used cars on the Internet", isn't really a field that's typically catered to in any kind of glamorous fashion by the Tech Industry. So one might argue that the bar was damned low. This just makes the opportunity, and the challenges to deliver on that opportunity ... all the greater. While we've overcome some of them, many more lie ahead, but there comes a point when we have to launch. And learn from actual human beings interacting with, and breaking our application.

So tonight, we finally launched :)

Once on the used cars search results page, one thing i hope will strike you, is how obscenely fast it's possible to hone-in on a vehicle you might be interested in. You might narrow-things down by Year, Price, Mileage up-top, and by a slew of possibly available options in the left column:

• Make
• Color
• Dealer-Certified
• Private Party
• Photo Available
• City MPG
• Highway MPG
• ...

These options and/or others might show-up based on the current state of your searching activity. As you might expect, each click affects all other options.

During development, we had a "Picnic Table" choice on the left. I wonder where it went :(. Who knows, perhaps it'll resurface.

Chime-in with what you think ... *gulp*. The team's already pulled-out their notepads. We do need an official blog for this stuff though. We do now :) Here's our first post.

See Also: Seeking a Web User Interface Engineer

See also: CarsDirect on TechCrunch

See also: Loan.com on N.Y. Times

Seeking a User Interface Engineer

This position was recently posted to the IB careers site. Here's the description I drafted-up:

The Company

Internet Brands is a leading operator of media and e-commerce sites for "large ticket" consumer purchases, such as cars and mortgages. Our sites include CarsDirect.com, LoanApp.com, Loan.com, RealEstateABC.com, Wikitravel.com, Vamoose.com and others within the auto, mortgage and travel verticals. We empower consumers to make better product choices and save money by providing them with superior content and knowledge.

Basics

We're seeking a Web User Interface Engineer to join a growing team of outstanding coders hard at work building useful, profit-generating, game-changing applications.

Projects might range from maintaining, enhancing existing applications to building new ones, covering a wide range of domains.

Required Qualifications

A qualified candidate will demonstrate a ferocious enthusiasm for clean, semantic, accessible, interoperable markup that validates, as well as ability to leverage some of these concepts to promote increased search engine visibility.

Beyond markup, a qualified candidate will demonstrate outstanding mastery of CSS to execute on our Creative Department's design guidance, and collaborate with Creative and Product Management, to suggest and prototype usability-enhancing considerations where applicable.

Candidates must be prepared to provide code samples, and/or write code during the interviewing process.

Additional Qualifying Considerations

• Strong communication skills
• Experience working in teams
• Familiarity and proven track-record dealing with Win/IE and other browser quirks in CSS and DOM
• Demonstrated JavaScript mastery
• Demonstrated XmlHttpRequest mastery
• Demonstrated DOM mastery.
• Demonstrated DOM Events mastery
• Familiarity with Cross-Site Scripting issues.
• Strong understanding of HTTP.
• Familiarity with Source-Control: svn, cvs.
• Experience working with DWR a plus.
• Experience with Microformats a plus

Interested? Tell me why. Send a note to my first name dot my last name at internetbrands dot com. Or just apply here.

We've also got a position open for a PHP developer. We've filled the PHP position, for now, but do keep an eye on the IB careers site.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

How to find an ethical lender

The Internet lists a multitude of lenders and mortgage brokers, but it offers little help to consumers in figuring out which ones are good or bad. Loan.com offers a directory of lenders and mortgage brokers that have agreed to a "borrower's bill of rights" that stipulates how lenders should interact with borrowers, such as not hiding fees.


read more | digg story

sleepy! Off to hawaii!!! Woohoo

sleepy! Off to hawaii!!! Woohoo
Originally uploaded by chrisholland.

Second one here!

Second one here!
Originally uploaded by chrisholland.

Ze frenchies debarquent

Ze frenchies debarquent
Originally uploaded by chrisholland.

An Evening at the Beach

An Evening at the Beach
Originally uploaded by chrisholland.

We were getting our engagement pictures taken. I took a break to snap a few of my own.

http://www.brandyandchris.com/

Jean-Paul Amouroux Boogie-Woogie @ Caveau de la Huchette

Jean-Paul Amouroux Boogie-Woogie @ Caveau de la Huchette
Originally uploaded by chrisholland.

Taken a few weeks back, at "Le Caveau de la Huchette", in Paris, France. Often referred to as Paris' Temple of Jazz. Great place.

Garry Betty

Garry Betty passed-away yesterday. Some of my former colleagues at EarthLink put together a tribute to Garry on ning.com.

I'm very sad. He was a leader of the highest caliber. In an online World once dominated by the walled-gardens of AOL and Compuserve, He and Sky Dayton brought about one of the first independent nationwide Internet Service Providers to offer unbridled, unlimited Internet Access.

To this day, EarthLink continues to challenge the choke-hold that phone companies work so hard to maintain on Broadband and Global Communications, by educating elected officials on the importance of a truly competitive broadband landscape, and offering consumers a world of possibilities.

That's a damned good legacy.

Also: Earthling weighs-in.

Google Talk + AIM

From the press release:

Under the strategic alliance, Google and AOL will continue providing search technology to AOL's network of Internet properties worldwide. The agreement's broad range of new features for users and advertisers include:

• Creating an AOL Marketplace through white labeling of Google's advertising technology - enabling AOL to sell search advertising directly to advertisers on AOL-owned properties;
• Expanding display advertising throughout the Google network;
• Making AOL content more accessible to Google Web crawlers;
• Collaborating in video search and showcasing AOL's premium video service within Google Video;
• Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met;
• and Providing AOL marketing credits for its Internet properties.

Windows Gadgets, Dashboard Widgets

Building Windows Vista Gadgets

Building Mac Dashboard Widgets

So Microsoft appears to be adopting a route similar to Apple's, in that their Gadgets framework leans heavily on HTML and CSS. Rather good news for us web-heads.

Samsung NV3 Digital Camera

i just bought the Samsung NV3.

It comes with 15MB internal memory, so you'll likely want to spend some dough on an SD card if you want to take those 7 mega pixel shots at superfine resolution. A 1GB SD card should fit about 250 of those.

As many cameras do, it has a dial on the top that lets you toggle between various modes. Two of those are "auto" and "P"(aka program) modes. The "auto" mode tells the camera to do all of the settings when taking a picture, aka "no-brainer photography", and doesn't let you override granular settings such as ISO, exposure, RGB, white balance, etc.

The "P" mode, also figures out settings automatically, but allows you to "set"/override each one. And it remembers them.

By simply turning the dial, this allows you to effortlessly switch between "no-brainer photography" from the "auto mode" and "full-control photography" from the "P"/program mode with all your last settings.

Zune.net, Zune's Website is Up

"Zune", Microsoft's attempt at an iPod competitor is launching today or tomorrow, and Zune.net appears to be the online destination for this new ecosystem.

I'm thinking Microsoft's approach is likely to be far more successful than other big players' past attempts at dethroning the iPod, because Microsoft is approaching this market as an ecosystem.

While the "device" may be the object of public and media obsession, everything that goes behind making the device actually useful and interoperable, is what makes-up the ecosystem, and the ecosystem is what attracts and keeps users. iPod is useful because of iTunes. iTunes is useful because i can just stick a CD in my computer, watch the tracks auto-import themselves, rearrange everything at will, then watch the iPod auto-update itself, or I can just click a button to burn my own compilation CD. Remember "Rip. Mix. Burn."? Then came the iTunes music store, the first viable online digital mainstream music marketplace, all integrated within iTunes, not some clumsily implemented web site.

Sony wasn't selling an ecosystem with their various cryptically-named devices.

Microsoft is.

With that said, it looks like a brick, much like the very-first iPods ... which was okay 5 years ago, and is available in black, white and ... diarrhea-brown.

Sweet Irony

A a couple of friends pointed me to this article:

The Investor: Jim Breyer, partner, Accel Partners

What he's backed: Brightcove, Facebook, Prosper

What he wants now: Social-networking sites may be sprouting like weeds, but none yet operates as a bona fide marketplace, with members buying and selling their own creations as much as they blog, link, and post. Breyer, who sits on Wal-Mart's board, is interested in backing an international network for indie artists, musicians, filmmakers, authors, designers, and other creative types from dozens of countries.

Ideally, the site would have the download and payment features to create what he calls a "micromarket" for members' wares. "There might be a Chinese student filmmaker with a five-minute film who wants to reach a niche of U.S. users," Breyer says. "He could find people willing to buy his films, and maybe a producer willing to bankroll more." Transaction fees would supplement ad revenue.

Breyer wants a five- to 10-person team to build a prototype using a peer-to-peer structure that would reduce bandwidth costs, and to identify core groups of users that would get traffic moving to the site.

What he'll invest: $10 million

I'll be damned if this doesn't sound exactly like a concept i've been developing and pitching over the past two ... three years. This article i wrote on dijjer (controversially dugg for having dared to suggest that something out there might be more appropriate than BitTorrent for certain use cases) a while back reflected just one of the latest strategies I was exploring to build a scalable ecosystem.

How did I get into this? Being in L.A., quite a few good friends of mine are struggling artists. Jazz artists. Blues. Independent filmmakers. Upon pitching the ecosystem to them, their response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and they've contributed a lot of great ideas. But I've so-far been letting them down though. Yet, applications of this concept don't stop there. The rabbit-hole goes deeper, much deeper.

The problem is, ideas, no matter how thoroughly-developed, and pitches, are dime a dozen. I've learned the hard way that nothing moves forward until you've built something palpable for people to poke at, get their hands-on, and understand your vision. But by the time you've gotten to that point, really, what the hell do you need investors, or anybody else for?

You ought to just go it alone. Screw investors. If you've got a sound business model, with a well-thought out application built from the ground-up with scaling in mind, you can buy the hardware and bandwidth you need, when you need it. You need investors when what you're looking to build is yet another buzzword-compliant web2.0-taggy-mashuppy-socialnetworky-hotmeme'o'the'day-y with no plan for a strong revenue stream, which in the end will die as yet another fad, but will have made a few investors rich because they got Yahoo! to purchase the user base.

At the last eBay developer conference, i got the chance to meet Shannon Sofield, from Payloadz.com, who gave us a presentation of his digital marketplace. He's figured out the tough part: facilitating transactions and fulfillment for the purchase and delivery of digital assets. And he's currently doing it without the assistance of any peer-to-peer framework. If he starts adding a social framework to his ecosystem, he'll have it made in the shade, not that what he currently has, doesn't already pay his bills quite handsomely. My hat off to Shannon, for having a vision, and superbly executing on it. And there's a lot of heat around his ecosystem, the dude could not rest for a second at the conference.

Let's hope that in 2007, I put an end to the pondering, and start delivering. If i don't, someone else will. And in the end, it'll be okay. Sad for me, but okay. I believe humanity is in dire need of an alternative to today's media distribution. Far too much of what we see, hear, read is controlled by a handful of corporations that call all the shots, and what rises to the top, is too often not even close of being anywhere near the cream. Widest possible audiences are being catered to, leaving little to no room for niche interests.

Money today is flowing in a highly inefficient and wasteful funnel pattern, from the unwashed masses to BigMedia, so many revenue opportunities are simply not being catered to.

We're missing out on so much. And it's sad.

Get Work Done with Blossom for OS X!

Round 3 of voting for MyDreamApp has just begun. Consider voting for Dan Lundmark's Blossom project.

Ever wonder where all the hours go? Blossom tracks how much time you spend on each app, web site, or document, and visualizes the data as a beautiful blossoming plant. Meet your goals and see your virtual plant blossom! Vote for the Blossom concept at http://mydreamapp.com/vote/ and see your productivity blossom!