Remembering the TRS-80 Color Computer

Inspired by Frank Patrick, I thought I’d track down the first computer I remember programming on – the Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer II. Thanks to Dad for the hardware and Mom for the subscription to the short-lived Enter Magazine. Ironically, it was called the “color computer”, and I only remember it plugged into a 9″ …

Backyard + Laptop + DVD = New Drive-in

It was such a gorgeous day here in Minneapolis, I moved my home office into the backyard. Aside from a curious squirrel it was very peaceful day. This evening, I returned to the backyard and, as Jen and I have done so many evenings this week, turned on the Powerbook’s DVD player. The drive-in’s of …

Take Control of Your Reputation – Blog

Though my blogging roots can be traced back October 2000 I started blogging regularly about a 18 months ago because I wanted my Google presence to be more than a handful of stale message board postings. If there’s any single reason to blog, it’s to take control over your online reputation. This goes for businesses, …

FeedJ – Is “Feed Jockey” Dorkier than “Blogger”?

If disc jockeys combine pre-record music into a playlist to improve the mood of their audience, can the same be true for weblogs and RSS feeds? The right aggregation of websites into a single feed, with everything you want and nothing you don’t, seems akin to the work of a good DJ. A good weblog …

Software Distribution History: Shrinkwrap to Download to Appcasting

NetNewsWire, my preferred RSS reader, isn’t particular about the file type within a given podcast. Audio (podcasting), video (videoblogging), images, pdfs (like 101sheets), torrents, or even applications (appcasting?). As you can tell from the appcasting link, Fraser Speirs was the first I knew of using an RSS feed to distribute his excellent iPhoto Flickr plugin. …

Reflections on Northern Exposure

“Football’s a good enough sport, but can you die playing it?” More than a decade ago, while flipping channels, I was first exposed to Northern Exposure. Maggie asked Joel to have dinner with her football-loving father under the pretense Joel was her extreme sports-loving boyfriend. (Not sure I got the above quote right, and google …

Worst We Can Do is Go Bankrupt in the Morning.

I’ve mentioned this before in Job Security is the Ability to Get a Job, there’s a line in the Princess Bride that I think accurately describes the modern day employer-employee relationship: “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” – Dread Pirate Roberts Today, Seth Godin said the …

Fix the Employee Cafeteria and You’ll Fix the Customer Relationship

Rob over at Business Pundit posts on How Broken Windows Can Kill a Business. As always, insightful. I’m a big fan of fixing the small things. Not only does it make a change easier to implement, all big things are made of small things, so the big things start to take care of themselves. The …