I’ve used Jott for a few weeks now and wanted to give a quick update of what I’ve found to be useful about it.

Jott is a to-do list with some sweet features - you can call it from your phone and leave yourself a to-do.  Or your can call Jott and send a friend a to-do or reminder.  You can organize your Jotts into lists and keep track of them easily using their web-based tool, as well.

You can also call up Jott and have it read you RSS feeds (never used it).  Or use Jott to write to WordPress or Twitter (I use those some).  But I think that the simplicity of Jott and the accessibility of it from a cell phone makes it a great to-do list.  I am using it to remind me of stuff I need to do (via text or email), as well as just keep track of the stuff I normally would forget about.  Great stuff.

I hear it has an iPhone app, but I wouldn’t know about that now, would I? *pouts*  Someone like Nathan Fowler would have to chime in to tell me how awesome he is for having an iPhone and tell us how awesome Jott is on the iPhone.

If you’re looking for a way to organize your to-dos, Jott may be your answer.  Check it out and see if it helps.

Take care everyone!

Colin

Recently I posted a basic statement by Major James Neushul, USMC Communication Officer and Information Management Officer. Below is his full statement - available nowhere else online - I’ve highlighted some key points. It’s a bit of a long read, I know, but it’s worth it.

Military software – by and large – sucks.

• Most military professionals don’t know or care about software, and do not distinguish software from systems.
• Military Industrial Complex (MIC) corporations cannot and do not compete in the real economy.
• MIC corporations are protected behind “Systems Engineering” requirements that are layered with policies enforced by military professionals who don’t understand them.
• “Systems Engineering,” “System of Systems,” “Configuration Management,” “Systems Integration,” and “Security Accreditation” are MIC supported concepts that are used to preserve system-centric MIC profit motives and cannot be associated with verifiable success models.
• MIC corporations persist socialist style mediocrity behind a facade of legalistic capitalism.
• DOD system architectures are completely divorced from DOD operational architectures to the detriment of Warfighting effectiveness.
• Net-Centric Warfare Doctrine is an excellent effort that has never been realized, despite widespread claims of success.
• Net-Centric Warfare objectives will not be achieved until exclusive use of open standards and public domain Open Source software are mandated and enforced in the DOD.
• The DOD owns all of the software it has paid for, but demonstrates ownership of none of the software it has paid for.
• The vast majority of U.S. Military software development is duplicative.
• Code re-use is unheard of due to the complete lack of policy, neglect of existing network resources, and abrogation of responsibility by DOD leadership.
• All products of DOD software development belong to the people of the United States and must be made available to them.
• Through the ignorance of their military overseers MIC corporations take de-facto ownership of the DOD software that they develop, and in doing so they steal from the people of the United States. By allowing this, military professionals and DOD officials violate the public trust.
• Failure to require that ALL products of software development activities in the DOD be made completely available to ALL DOD entities, organizations and developers using existing software repository tools is reprehensible.

Major premise: Failure to make ALL products of software development activities available to the general public using existing software repositories except in cases where CLEAR and PROVABLE security concerns exist is wasteful, unnecessary and abusive of public trust.

Minor Premise: With current object oriented procedures that effectively allow the separation of presentation and data, software that CLEARLY and PROVABLY demonstrates or reveals controlled or secret information is so poorly designed as to represent a WORST practice – and should be prohibited in the strongest terms and eliminated.

Conclusion: All DOD software development products should be in the public domain as open source.

• Web Services and Service Oriented Architectures rely intrinsically on common, collaborative, open source technologies that derive relevance from widespread use and from the “Many Eyes” principle.
• NCW objectives will not be achieved until “Off-The-Shelf” products are replaced with “Off-the-Net” products.
• The requisite skills to achieve “Off-The-Net” capabilities do not exist in MIC corporations and are actively resisted in order to preserve traditional system-centric profit models. Service Oriented Architectures require service oriented profit models that existing non-competitive MIC corporations cannot be expected to achieve.
• Adherence to traditional development practices will result in continued failure to achieve NCW objectives.
• The “Many Eyes” principle is a cornerstone security factor that cannot be matched by any closed source processes, and without which truly reliable software cannot be developed.
• Explicit mandate of open source software that leverages a community of worldwide proportions is imperative for true security and reliability.
• Explicit mandate in the DOD of open source software that leverages public domain collaboration, re-use, and development will create a revolution in military affairs (RMA), and will represent an appropriate and effective expenditure of public funds in a way that will improve national defense, promote general public security, and support critical public infrastructure.
• Arguments that posit security or legal concerns to oppose the use and support of public domain open source software are vapid, uninformed, irresponsible and support MIC profit motives that are not in the best interests of the public or of the Warfighter.
• Version control has been solved in the public domain. It has not been solved in the DOD and represents billions of dollars of waste.
• Emulation of the public domain in the DOD is not sufficient.
• The use of Microsoft Software represents blatant violation of NCW principles, waste of public funds, ignorance of real security principles, and reprehensible complacency.
• Use of Microsoft software in the DOD caused friction and inertia that retards progress and is a clear detriment to Warfighting effectiveness.

NCW capabilities will not be realized until there is congressional or executive level mandate of open standard, open source, public domain software in the DOD and all government agencies.

As Neushul quotes in the header on the original document - “You cannot solve your problems using the same thinking that caused them.” - Einstein

What do you think? Is Neushul off his rocker or the only sane person related to Military Software? Hope you enjoyed this refreshing bit of fresh thought on the subject!

Colin

Happy Monday to you all out there.  Wanted to share a little bit about the weekend and talk about a new purchase I made.

The weekend was great - my cousin Lauren got married and I got to shoot the wedding - which is always tons of fun.  I shot with Tracey Long, a photographer friend of mine I’ve shot with for a year or so.  The wedding was at the Canton Theatre - a small, old timey theatre with almost no light to speak of.  So I was thankful we rented 24mm f/1.4s (for those of you unfamiliar with photograph speak, that low f number means it lets a lot of light in).  The wedding was simple and small, but I thought it was very nice.  I’ll have some pictures for y’all to look at Wednesday night or Thursday, most likely.

I made a purchase I think will get some good use in the months and years to come - a nice flash unit from AlienBees and a nice stand, boom arm, and softbox.  Should let me shoot some sweet portraits - which I’m sure I’ll post here soon.

The day has been good so far - finally to a point in the summer where I can turn from researching CRMs and their capabilities to beginning to become an expert with one of the systems.  Off to dig more into the world of open source.

What did you do with your weekend?

Take care,

Colin

I’ve mentioned it in passing, but this App deserves a full post for a look-at.  Let me introduce you to MyMileMarker.com.  Remember when your parents or grandparents (or you) wrote down some information in a book every time you filled up?

MyMileMarker keeps track of that and gives you some sweet action reporting.

Every time you fill up on gas, just save the information for entering later.  Or, if you have Twitter - text message Twitter and tell it to direct message the information to MyMileMarker - and you’re done.  After a while, MyMileMarker shows you projections of fuel usage, cost, miles driven, and more.  It even keeps track of when you changed your oil.

I haven’t had a chance to fill up the car since I found this App, but it looks sweet.  Give it a look-see and let me know what you think!

Colin

You know all those Domino’s commercials, the ones that push “You’ve got 30 minutes” over and over again?

Well, turns out, you have at least 30 minutes.  Sure, they’ve gotten pizza to me in 20 minutes before, that’s why this was so strange to me.

I ordered my pizza at 6:33 PM last night.  Have an email to prove it.  I even got this message at 6:47 in my “Pizza Watch” window.

Now, Domino’s is up the hill a mile, take a left, and it’s another half mile.  Google Maps says it should take them 5-6 minutes to get to my house.  There’s between 2 and 5 stoplights, depending on the route you take.  But they didn’t get to my house until 7:19 PM - that’s 46 minutes if you’re counting (which I was, because of their ad campaign).  22 minutes after my pizza got put into a hot HeatWave™ bag, it got here.  Sure, it was still hot, but I find an issue with companies who advertise one thing and then back off it when they don’t deliver.

It’s not a guarantee for safety reasons.  I get safety reasons - but I would have made the 5 minute drive to Domino’s and back in 12 minutes less than it took them to drive it once.  But why would you advertise something so often and then not deliver on it?  That’s creating ill-will among consumers.  And it’s hurting your delivery people - the delivery woman was really pleasant about it when I asked her - and I tipped her OK, but you better believe it crossed my mind to not tip, since I was already paying a $1.50 delivery fee.

This “You’ve got 30 minutes” stuff is bad marketing juju, I say.  I’d back off fast if I were Domino’s corporate.  What say you?  Am I off my rocker or have you had similar experiences?

Colin

I called Dad at lunch today and asked him if he knew of any software apps much like MyMileMarker that helped manage finances - he said Clark Howard had been recommending Mint.com.  So I checked it out.

Mint.com takes all your financial data (syncs with your credit cards, bank accounts, etc) and pulls them into one interface.  It categorizes purchases so you can keep track of where the money goes, it allows you to compare actual expenditures to budgeted expenditures, and it allows you to compare yourself against averages and see how you can save money.  And it’s free.  Apparently they get a cut if you get a new credit card with a lower rate.

Seems like a pretty sweet tool - very useful, very easy to use, and very handy.  I was talking to Cooper earlier today and he expressed the objection about having all your data in one place - which is about my only concern as well.  But Mint says they can only read and can’t write to your accounts.

Have you heard of Mint and had a good/bad experience?  Should we be concerned about security with this type of data?  What are your thoughts?

I’ll start using it and give periodic updates as to whether it’s a great program or just another stick in the mud.  I wanna hear from you guys!

Take care,

Colin

Last night, I was signing up for MyMileMarker - an online tool to help track gas mileage / usage and provide you with some sweet stats, and I came upon the best End User License Agreement (or EULA) I’ve ever read:

“It’s a web site… it won’t destroy your computer. We’ll take your data and store it, but if we lose it, we’re sorry. We’ll probably sell aggregate data (but not your name or email address) to advertisers. We reserve the right to charge for this at some point.  These terms might change in the future, but if they do, we’ll let you know.  Cool?”

Wasn’t that easy?  How often have we just hit “I agree” and not even read half of the EULA?  This is how it should be - not 3 pages of legal jargon I can’t understand.

This should be the new standard for EULAs.  Don’t write something that you can’t read in under a minute, and make it in simple, understandable terms.

Colin

Yes, I’m aware I’m a nerd for blogging about how awesome a EULA was.  Feel free to make fun of me, though.

I’ve got the no iPhone blues.  Because I can’t get an iPhone 3G for another three months unless I want to pay $200 more than the $199 list price.

Turns out, the evil empire that is AT&T won’t sell the iPhone 3G to people like me (who don’t have an upgrade credit available until October) at $199.  Nope, they want $399 for it.  And frankly, I’d rather wait three months and spend that extra money to get 8 GB of extra space.

So it looks like I’ll be iPhoneless in Atlanta for another three months.  No, it’s not the end of the world, but I won’t be able to email, browse, and surf the web from my phone on vacation in August from the top of a mountain.  Shafted by the death star again!

If anyone knows how to get around this upgrade credit crap, drop me a line.  I want the iPhone!

Colin

This from Major James Neushul, USMC Communication Officer and Information Management Officer:

“Failure to make ALL products of [Department of Defense] software development activities available to the general public using existing software repositories except in cases where CLEAR and PROVABLE security concerns exist is wasteful, unnecessary and abusive of public trust.”

I’m glad someone out there is preaching the gospel of open source.  More to come on government and open source soon.

Hope everyone had a good Independence Day.

Colin