Bogle's Blog

Pledge to Vote. Tell your Friends. Win a free concert.

philbo — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:57:05 +0000

Please register to vote and encourage your friends to vote.

The Vote Facebook application gives schools a chance to win two free concerts by Jason Mraz, Will.I.Am and Wyclef Jean.

Every student who takes the pledge to vote below counts as one entry in the raffle to win a concert at their school.

Jing: the easiest way to create screencasts

philbo — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:34:16 +0000

I’ve become a big fan of Jing, a free utility which describes itself as the “quick & easy way to visually share your thoughts.”

Below is short video about a new iGoogle gadget, created using Jing. In a single step Jing captured the screen video below, uploaded it to the screenshot.com server, and copied the embedding markup to the clipboard. Jing also captures from the microphone allow easy voiceovers. (My video has only background noise however.)

There certainly have been screen capture utilities before but none so nicely integrated into a service for hosting and sharing the content.

We’ve started using Jing at iLike for bug tracking; it’s way easier than Trac’s image upload tool and allows

Jing is available for both the Mac and PC and is built by TechSmith, the same company that makes SnagIt.

John Cook launches a new NW technology news site

philbo — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:44:11 +0000

John Cook, long time author of the popular Venture Blog at the PI, is moving on to the Puget Sound Business Journal and launching a new blog. John’s a good guy, I’m including a copy of his announcement to below.

After more than a decade of covering Seattle area startups, I’ve decided to roll the dice on a new venture myself.

My long-time colleague Todd Bishop and I are joining forces with the Puget Sound Business Journal to create a new online news site.

Our goal is quite simple: to create the leading technology news source in the Pacific Northwest.

I will continue to write my blog on the new site, covering startups, entrepreneurs and venture capital. But the coverage will go much deeper, with Todd offering his award-winning reporting on Microsoft and other large technology companies. I am also happy to announce that Eric Engleman — a veteran technology reporter at the Puget Sound Business Journal who many of you already know — also will be contributing to the site.

Over time, we plan to add new editorial features as well as host events around town.

While it is tough to say goodbye to the P-I, it also was the right time for me to take the entrepreneurial plunge. (Hanging around so many entrepreneurs over the years is a bit contagious.)

I recognize that startups are hard and that most new ventures fail. But I am energized by the opportunity to combine traditional journalism with the world of new media.

Anyway, we are working on the new site and plan to launch in the coming weeks. You can sign up at the temporary site — www.pugetsoundbusinessjournal.com/tech — to get notified of the launch and reserve a spot for daily e-mail news updates once we go live.

In the meantime, you can reach me at 206-913-7926 or johnharoldcook@gmail.com.

Thanks for all your support over the years. Of course, none of this would be possible without you, the readers. So I welcome any feedback, insight or questions you might have as we try to build this new journalistic venture.

We are firm believers that a technology center of Seattle’s stature deserves a truly local news source. So please don’t hesitate to email or call if you have story ideas, Web site features or other elements you would like to see in the site.

iLike Developer platform allows you to easily add music to any web site

philbo — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:39:09 +0000

iLike’s new developer platform allows you easily add full-track streaming music to any web site without difficult engineering. (See coverage on TechCrunch and CNet.)

You don’t have to upload any tracks, the music comes from major labels, and it’s all legal.

there’s an interesting twist to iLike’s platform: it’s specifically focused on making iLike playlists available and openly collaborative. That’s evident in the list of launch partners: the forthcoming Connected Weddings application on Facebook, for example, will let wedding guests add to a suggested song playlist; the Flixster movies application will use iLike’s API to let members build movie soundtracks to accompany the film’s page in the Flixster directory; the set of TV-fan apps built by Watercooler will let fans also construct the soundtrack that played in the background in any episode of a given TV show. Other partners include Classtop.com, the Social Gaming Network’s Free Gifts application, Slide’s FunSpace, Jambool, Mesmo.com, and Zimride’s Carpools application.

The partners don’t end with social applications, either: IAC’s Evite will be using iLike’s API for a “playlist” tab on each invitation, so that guests can build a party soundtrack, and both TypePad and Google have built embeddable blog widgets to incorporate music.

Dilbert Guy’s economic poll on McCain, Obama

philbo — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:55:32 +0000

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, and CNN have commissioned a survey of 500 economists from the American Economic Association.

Below are their economists’ opinions for which candidate will do better on a set issues; Obama is favored for 11 of 13 issues, including the mortgage housing crisis (41% to 18%) and reducing the deficit (37% to 29%) and Wars and Homeland Security (58% to 30%).

McCain on the Financial Markets

philbo — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:20:02 +0000

From an interview on NBC’s Today show:

On NBC’s “Today” show, Matt Lauer, from the floor of the New York Stock exchange, described Monday’s 500-point drop as a “bloodbath” and asked Mr. McCain how he could say that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” while his campaign released an ad saying that the economy is in crisis…

Mr. McCain replied by saying that when he spoke about the fundamentals of the economy, he was referring to the workers – which is different from how he has described the term before.

“Well it’s obviously true that the workers of America are the fundamentals of our economy, and our strength and our future,’’ he said. “And I believe in the American worker, and someone who disagrees with that – it’s fine. We are in crisis. We all know that. The excess, the greed and the corruption of Wall Street have caused us to have a situation which is going to affect every American. We are in a total crisis.’’

Mr. Lauer asked if there was something wrong with the fundamentals of the economy that was causing the difficulty.

“There’s nothing wrong with the workers of America,’’ he said. “I believe that they’re the fundamentals. You may not, others may not. I think that the worker of America is the reason that we’ve been the preeminent economy in the world for a long, long period of time. America is in crisis today.’’

“We need a 9/11 commission, and we need a commission to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it,’’ he said. “And I know we can do it and how to do it.”

He continued the reformulation – that when he says the fundamentals of the economy, he is referring to the workers – at the rally here. “The working people of the state of Florida and this nation are the most innovative, hardest working, the best-skilled, most productive, most competitive in the world,’’ he said. “And this foundation of our economy, the American worker, is strong. But it’s been put a great risk by the greed and mismanagement of Wall Street and Washington.’’

Obama on the Financial Markets

philbo — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:15:26 +0000

Barack Obama just issued a statement on the turmoil in financial markets.

If you want to get beyond the sound bites, you should check out Obama’s March 2008 address on modernizing financial regulation. I wrote a transcript of the key points here.

The urgent need for the kinds of reforms Obama discusses have only become clearer in the intervening months.

Americans have pursued their dreams within a free market that has been the engine of America’s progress. It’s a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world, and opportunity for generations of Americans. A market that has provided great rewards to the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon for science, and technology, and discovery.

But the American experiment has worked in large part because we have guided the market’s invisible hand with a higher principle. Our free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it. That is why we have put in place rules of the road to make competition fair, and open, and honest. We have done this not to stifle – but rather to advance prosperity and liberty.

As I said at NASDAQ last September: the core of our economic success is the fundamental truth that each American does better when all Americans do better; that the well being of American business, its capital markets, and the American people are aligned.

I think all of us here today would acknowledge that we’ve lost that sense of shared prosperity.

Under Republican and Democratic Administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices.

We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales.

The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both.

Comparing McCain and Obama’s tax cuts: trillions in new debt, small salary impact

philbo — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:35:19 +0000

Below is an analysis of the impacts of the McCain and Obama tax cuts plans. The source is CNN/Money, thanks to Obama Brewer for the link.

As you look at these numbers consider both the trillions being added to the national debt in a time of war and the tiny impact of the cuts (in the case of McCain: 1% for most folks, 9% for millionaires) as a percentage of income. (More after the table.)

	McCain		Obama
New National Debt (increase over 10y)	$4.5 trillion		$3.3 trillion

	McCain		Obama
Income Level	Savings	% of income	Savings	% of income
Under $19K	$19.00	0.1%	$567.00	3.0%
$19K - $38K	$113.00	0.4%	$892.00	3.1%
$38K - $66K	$319.00	0.6%	$1,042.00	2.0%
$66K - $112K	$1,009.00	1.1%	$1,290.00	1.4%
$112K - $161K	$2,614.00	1.9%	$2,204.00	1.6%
$161K - $227K	$4,380.00	2.3%	$2,789.00	1.4%
$227K - $603K	$7,871.00	1.9%	-$12.00	-0.0%
$603K and up	$45,361.00	8.9%	-$115,974.00	-22.8%
Over $2.9M	$269,364.00	9.3%	-$701,885.00	-24.2%

The critical thing to consider is the trillions of dollars being added to the national debt ($4.5 trillion over ten years for McCain, $3.2 trillion for Obama) at a time when we are already running deficits and fighting a war. We haven’t been successful at reducing deficits with a Republican congress and president so it seems optimistic to do the double-down again on unfunded tax “cuts” and expect a different outcome. (The only time the government has run a surplus in recent memory was during the Clinton administration.)

The other thing to consider is the relatively small benefits across the board as a percentage of income. It’s not going to move the needle for many people– not even a cost of living adjustment, much less a raise. If you’re making a $500,000 a year, McCain’s plan will cut your taxes by 2% of that. If you’re making $100,000 the cut is only 1%. Even if you make millions a year McCain’s plan results in an less than 10% of additional income.

Far more likely to make a difference in people’s income and lives is a booming economy, fueled by technical innovation and a well-trained workforce.

There are differences, of course, in which income segments receive the greatest “benefits” under each plan, with Obama’s cuts weight towards lower incomes and McCain’s cuts weighted towards higher incomes. But this a red herring. As long as the government is running a deficit, these aren’t tax cuts at all, they’re government handouts paid for by borrowing.

American voters refuse to elect a president who doesn’t pander to them with these so-called tax cuts, and they elect congressmen and women who fight tooth and nail for their own pork. At some point we’re going to have grow up and face facts that this continued borrowing is unsustainable.

Update: Here is a more precise online calculator that will calculate your taxes based on how much you make, how many children you have, and whether you are married. Broadly, the conclusion agree with the table above. [Geek notes: I used OpenOffice to create the table and export it to HTML. I was quite please with how well it worked, though ideally the HTML for the table would be cleaner.)

An appeal to independent voters

philbo — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:21:32 +0000

I support Barack Obama, but regardless of who wins, I will support them as long as they bring real unity, reform, and a turning away from the excesses and divisiveness of the last eight years.

My father was a naval officer; I respect McCain’s commitment to defending his country and record of bipartisanship. I lived in the small town of Centerville, Tennessee; I appeciate Palin’s authenticity, small town values, and commitment to walking the talk of her moral beliefs.

I am concerned that McCain’s greatest success came only after Bush campaign strategists and speechwriters took over his campaign. These strategists crafted a remarkably successful message in 2000 and 2004, but the resulting division and lopsided government was not good for the country.

If these hard-core partisans are rewarded with four more years in power, it’s hard to what incentive they’ll have to turn away from division and one-sided rule.

This video shows how Bush strategists are once again distorting the truth in their campaign ads bashing Obama. Please view it, please consider how single-party rule and divisiveness contribute to corruption in politics, and please join me (regardless of who wins) in a more united approach to solving our problems.

“Drill Baby Drill!”

philbo — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 05:20:29 +0000

With a few exceptions, the media fails to put our debates over drilling in the context of our oil usage.

According to official DOE statistics, the US consumes 7 billion barrels per year (that’s 20 million barrels a day). (Total global oil consumption is 30 billion barrels per year.)

John McCain recently noted :

We have proven oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production,” said McCain. “And I believe it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use.”

You really can’t understand the significance of 21 billion without considering the 7 billion gallons we use each year. Why don’t news sources mention that very basic basic context?

In checking around, McCain’s figures of 21 billion are certainly an underestimate of actual domestic oil reserves. But even if you assume 10 times the amount (for which few would be willing to argue), we’re talking about energy independence for at best the next few decades.

It’s not a solution for our own lifetime much less our children’s lifetime (even ignoring climate change and other impacts of oil.) 30 years is not a long time for a major shift in energy sources.

A sincere “all of the above” approach is a reasonable approach to weaning ourselves off a dwindling resource. But “drill baby drill” does not give me confidence that the reality of the situation is being acknowledged or taken seriously; we’ll end up with a “one of the above” stopgap measure that helps for an election cycle or two but leaves us even worse off.

A review of Motodom’s instructional DVD for disc sports

philbo — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:52:18 +0000

The Motodom “Heave H.O.E” DVD claims to offer “clear instructions for those ready to get serious about flying disc play”, and includes recommendations from a university Ultimate coach.

In reality, the DVD spends a grand total of 5 minutes talking about the forehand, and doesn’t include any content specific to Ultimate at all. It advises you to lead with the wrong foot for the forehand, and it spends an equal amount of time talking about the ground skip, an utterly useless novelty throw. There’s nothing on the DVD that you couldn’t find in a few minutes search on YouTube.

1 star, definitely to be avoided!

Big Government is watching

philbo — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 08:39:57 +0000

From the Washington Post:

Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

DHS officials said the newly disclosed policies — which apply to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens — are reasonable and necessary to prevent terrorism.

Officials said such procedures have long been in place but were disclosed last month because of public interest in the matter.

“They’re saying they can rifle through all the information in a traveler’s laptop without having a smidgen of evidence that the traveler is breaking the law,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Notably, he said, the policies “don’t establish any criteria for whose computer can be searched.”

Customs Deputy Commissioner Jayson P. Ahern said the efforts “do not infringe on Americans’ privacy.” In a statement submitted to Feingold for a June hearing on the issue, he noted that the executive branch has long had “plenary authority to conduct routine searches and seizures at the border without probable cause or a warrant” to prevent drugs and other contraband from entering the country.

FLOBOTS "HANDLEBARS"

Who needs an iPhone? How to get more out of the iPod Touch.

philbo — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:44:45 +0000

Lifehacker recently wrote Forget the iPhone- the iPod touch is good enough:

Back in June 2007, I couldn’t convince my wife that checking my email in grocery lines was worth $1,320—the cost of an original iPhone and one year of the cheapest plan. These days, the trend-setting phone costs even more money over its life, and it’s more than a little restrictive and even a bit buggy. So I’m amazed at how little love the iPod touch gets. It’s a slimmer iPhone with almost all its features, it requires no contract, and when you can’t get a Wi-Fi signal, your plain, humble cellphone can step up to take its place. Here’s why anyone considering the iPhone should opt for its oft-ignored sibling—the iPod touch—instead. Photo by sarchi.

While you won’t get every single one of the iPhone’s capabilities when you opt for an iPod touch, you’ll save a ton of money. Buying an iPod touch costs you $300 for unlimited use, not a guaranteed commitment of more than $1,600 over two years that the iPhone involves (more, if you have to pay a penalty to get out of your current cellphone contract).

I agree. A refurbished or lightly used 16GB iPod Touch can be found on eBay these days for around $260, much cheaper than the $1320 the iPhone will cost you you over two years. Besides, I’m not ready to replace my Blackberry as a phone/email device just yet– you’ll have a hard time getting me to accept a touch screen for typing long emails.

That price lets you enjoy all of the software goodness that the iPhone and Apple’s game changing App Store has to offer.

What about the lack of a built-in speaker? For $8.24 shipped, I got a very compact add-on speaker for the iPod that plugs into the dock connector. (The speaker was shipped free from Hong Kong and remarkably made it to Seattle in only five days; I haven’t found anywhere locally as cheap.)

Microphone? Lifehacker has a piece on how to turn you ipod touch into an iPhone that describes a microphone add-on, around $50, and explains how to install VOIP software for free or low cost phone cals. This option is a bit on the bleeding edge for me, but I expect in not too long you’ll see combo speaker/microphone add-ons for affordable prices.

Alan Steele joins identity.net as VP of Engineering

philbo — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:33:08 +0000

I’m pleased to see that Alan will be joining Identity.net and carrying forward some of the ideas we developed at Mergelab.

From Alan’s announcement:

Just over a year ago, Mark and I attended IIW 2007 down in the bay area, which added fuel to a strong interest in emerging standards around user-centric identity - including OpenID, microformats, oAuth, etc. - a trip that helped inform some of the ideas that we explored at Mergelab.

I am happy to announce that I’ve found a way to continue down this path by joining Identity.net, a Bellevue-based startup with an ambitious plan to build on these emerging technologies.

(Those who know me well will understand that it must be an interesting company and an interesting space if I’m willing to commute to the east side for it! :)

The official announcement that hit the wires this morning is here. I am also going to be hiring for a number of positions in development over the next few weeks and months so if you know someone who might be interested, please send them my way!

Google introduces Election Video search tool

philbo — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:55:20 +0000

Google has introduced an Elections video search gadget that allows you to search political speeches, uses an automatic transcript created by speech-to-text technology. You can see all of the matching snippets and jump directly to the relevant section of video.

The speech recognition is not perfect, of course– searching for “ruby” generates mistaken matches again Rudy, for example– but it’s still useful and a very cool proof of concept for things to come.