Archive for August, 2008

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Ubiquity Will Be Ubiquitous

August 28th, 2008

Mozilla unveiled a new offering called Ubiquity yesterday, an experiment connecting the web with language.  It’s designed to let you control a whole lot more using your keyboard.  For instance – you navigate to a page and want to share it with Dave. Open Ubiquity using a keyboard shortcut, type in ‘email this to dave’ and hit enter. All of a sudden it opens GMail and has the email already written.

Ubiquity can do almost anything, it all depends on the list of commands you subscribe to (you get to pick which commands it responds to).  Ubiquity will soon become ubiquitous – commands need to be better moderated, though.  Because Ubiquity commands do anything, someone at Mozilla needs to get on the ball and get their trusted Ubiquity command system up and running. If you add Ubiquity and add a list of commands you want to use, you’ll see a quite scary warning screen. Do your research and make sure you can trust the commands you’re subscribing to.

This will make life easier and I can’t wait to see Ubiquity as it continues to develop. Check it out and let me know what you think.  I’ve used Ubiquity to twitter, email, look up maps, add stuff to my calendar, and there are thousands of other commands I can use.  I can’t wait to see what sort of Ubiquity commands come out in the future – it will literally change the way I interact with my computer.

With time, Ubiquity will become ubiquitous.

Take care,

Colin

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Personal Branding

August 27th, 2008

How are you branded? What do people think about you, your blog, your facebook, your picture, the way you dress, your overall image? We’ve always wondered what other people think about us, and this is just another way of asking that same question, except in this case I’d like to emphasize that you have control over your brand.

I started thinking a bit about this last week and I have found myself wondering how I’m perceived at work, online, etc. My twitter account says something about me. My blog says something. My work says something, my clothes say something, the way I talk to people says something.

So here’s the challenge – how do you want to be portrayed?  Are you doing everything you can to be portrayed that way?

It’s hard enough for me to figure out how I want to be portrayed, let alone make sure everything I do is in line with that line of thought.  How do you view me?  If someone says “define Colin” – what are the first words that HONESTLY come to mind?

Just something to think about (but I want your feedback!). Take care.

Colin

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Testing IntenseDebate’s New Plugin

August 21st, 2008

IntenseDebate is the comment system I employ here at ColinAke.com – if you’ve commented on a post you’ve probably noticed it.  I love IntenseDebate – it threads comments, emails people and brings them back to the site, and improves the comment experience.

I’m currently involved in testing their new WordPress plugin. It’s got some kick-butt features that make it VERY attractive for bloggers, and though I’m not at liberty to disclose those features, let me say that if you haven’t switched over to IntenseDebate, you’ll want to when this new plugin comes out.

In the meantime, comment on as many posts of mine as you can and see if you can figure out some of the new features for yourself. ;)

One of the things I like about IntenseDebate is their great customer service. Michael Koenig is their support dude and is probably one of the easiest support guys to get a hold of.  He’s on Twitter (so is ID) – he’s on Email.  He’s really helpful and generally fast to respond (He does have to sleep some – he’s not superhuman). Anyways, if you run a blog and want a better way to manage your comments, check out IntenseDebate

Colin

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Skribit

August 20th, 2008

If you’re a regular visitor, I’m sure you’ve noticed the layout change (uses more screen real estate) and a couple changes.  This includes a tag cloud (it’ll grow as I actually tag my posts), and a new application called Skribit.

Skribit (co-founded by Paul Stamatiou, Georgia Tech student and fellow blogger) is designed for bloggers to get feedback from their readers on topics to write on.  I want to provide you with topics that you want to read about.  If you prefer my commentary on web 2.0 apps, or want to hear more about school, want me to shut up, or want me to blog more on business concepts, Skribit is designed to give you the opportunity to have some input!  Take the chance – let me know if you have an idead or two for me to write about and I think you will not be disappointed.  Try it out and let me know what you think.

Take care, I’m late to bed (the only night this week I get decent sleep).

Colin

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Service Journal

August 19th, 2008

One of my classes this semester is Services Marketing – an elective for management majors persuing a marketing certificate. The class is taught by one of my all time favorite professors at Tech, Peter Vantine. Professor Vantine has some extensive history in the services marketing industry and his experience contributes to a course that encourages us to treat the marketing of services differently than traditional product marketing.

How is a service different from a product? Customers usually don’t obtain ownership of the service. They cannot be inventories and sold later – this they’re very perishable. Often there is a level of service variability that depends on the person performing the service. Services are subjective to the opinion of the customer.

One of the things I have to turn in is a Service Journal – a series of entries documenting my service experiences, both good and bad. I’ve already done a little bit of that here with my rantings against AT&T, so I believe I’ll continue the trend and post some service journal entries for you all to enjoy. I’d also love to hear from you as I post the entries to determine if you’ve had a different experience with the same company, or if you feel my interaction typifies the company’s customer service.

Sit back, enjoy, and feel free to critique the ride.

Take care,

Colin

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Better Place: Electric Cars

August 19th, 2008

Let’s talk for a minute about something that intrigued me recently.  I was reading my newest WIRED magazine (an always superbly excellent magazine) and I read their feature article on Shai Agassi (former SAP executive) and his new project, Better Place.

Better Place is Agassi’s solution to environmental issues – his goal is to retire the internal combustion engine and put in a nationwide network of electric charging stations to charge electric cars. How?  He wants to separate the cars from the battery.  You buy cars from a manufacturer, and you subscribe to a plan of miles – want to drive 15,000 miles in a year?  Buy that plan.  Charge everywhere.  Shopping malls, your house, your office. Anywhere you go, plug in.

Did I mention he has the nation of Israel signed on?  And Denmark?  And he’s raised $200 million, planning $160 million more?  And he’s not worried about competition – “The mission is to end oil – not to create a company.”  He plans to pay a premium for clean energy to fuel his plan and make clean energy technologies more economic.

I like this idea.  It’s something that can be put in place NOW and can impact our dependence on foreign oil.  Now, I don’t buy into Al Gore style global warming (I’m not convinced it’s human triggered), but I do want to see our dependence on foreign oil lessen.  This would do the trick.  It’d be like your cellphone provider – companies would sell you a car at a steep discount to make profits off the energy.  Read the article if you have some time (it will take some time) – but it’s a great article.  I’m interested to see what happens with Better Place.  Soon, I’m fairly certain we’ll see it make some waves in the US.

What do you see as the next step to increase independence from foreign oil?  Would something like this work?

Would Better Place make the world a better place?

Take care, I’m off to day two of classes.

Colin

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Vacation

August 14th, 2008

Howdy from the blue ridge mountains! It’s nearly the end of vacation, and though I’ve tried to stay away from blogging a bit, I can’t help myself but to blog once more from vacation. We’re at the folk art center and discussing the correlation between crazy hair and eccentricity, and the ability to sell random arts and crafts.

We’re planning on driving south on the Parkway to Mount Pishah later and checking out some more mountains and waterfalls and such. Saturday we head home to begin school and such.

How has your summer been? Have you taken the time to relax and get ready for the year ahead? It’s good to be productive, but it’s also important to relax and catch up on sleep.

Take care,

Colin

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Vacation Bound!

August 9th, 2008

Finally the summer end is here and we are off for a week in the North Carolina mountains! I’m looking forward to sleeping in, reading, and enjoying the outdoors. Can’t wait to get some photography in.

We will be just east of Asheville in Old Fort – we rented a house on the top of the mountain for the week. We’ll have some great sunsets to look forward to. And I just found out that we’ll be at the mountain house during the perseid meteor shower…. So we should have some great opportunities to shoot some sweet pictures of that. In addition, I brought my flash equipment so I hope to have some sweet pictures of the family and such.

I have several books with me… War of Words, Campus CEO, and Naked Conversations, a book on corporate blogging. I’ll post some pictures as I take them throughout the week.

We’re in Franklin, NC at the Motor Company Grill. Time for some great American food. I’m in and out of cell coverage so i’ll blog when I can.

Take care, y’all.

Colin

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CERN Rap Music Video / Large Hadron Rap

August 5th, 2008

If you’re a nerd, physicist, or just like creative videos on YouTube, this one’s for you.

Enjoy!  I know I did!  Have a great day!

Colin

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Posted in Entertainment

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CNN’s Employee Blogging/Comment Policy

August 4th, 2008

I got an email from Simon over at Bloggasm about CNN’s new policy about employees commenting on matters CNN.  Apparently their new policy prohibits CNN employees from talking about issues CNN reports on – which is, last time I checked – just about everything.

MOST IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: UNLESS GIVEN PERMISSION BY CNN MANAGEMENT, CNN EMPLOYEES ARE TO AVOID TAKING PUBLIC POSITIONS ON THE ISSUES AND PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS ON WHICH WE REPORT.

Now, my only point is that while I understand that high profile figures would generally want to abstain from comment in this realm, not all employees should be subject to the same rules.  A video producer, a graphic designer, or a copy editor don’t interject their opinion into CNN’s broadcasts and are only there are tools for the broadcast.  They should be able to speak freely.  Very few companies should be able to prohibit public free speech amongst their employees – nobody in their right mind is going to think that someone who runs Adobe AfterEffects for CNN is going to be speaking for the entire news organization about a given issue.  Just another reason CNN sucks.

I guess it makes sense that they don’t want people to go into chat rooms and say “I work for CNN, and I think that…” or comment in a Fark thread that “I work for CNN, so I find this thread funny.”  But to prohibit employees from publicly identifying themselves is a little bit beyond what I’d deem to be necessary to protect CNN’s image.

For those who are interested, click the “More” link for the entire policy.

» Read more: CNN’s Employee Blogging/Comment Policy

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