The Cubicle
A treatise on the lowly cubicle.
June 02, 2008
August 09, 2007
Great Mac Tech Support
If any of you are looking for great Mac tech-support, I can highly recommend Pixelfixny. Call and ask for Ben or Lawrence. Or drop them a line by clicking here.
They have a frighteningly exhaustive knowledge of Mac and Mac networks and are extremely pleasant to work with. Ted Colgate still ranks as the best Mac guy I've ever worked with, but Ben and Lawrence are close seconds.
Steve
August 05, 2006
Free movie downloads
Although the downloading of movies is in its infancy, the time will come when the Internet will be a primary distribution pipeline for Hollywood. Give the experience a try by downloading from this archive of legal downloads of classic films, short subjects, and documentaries.
February 23, 2006
10 Things That Will Change The Way We Live
Forbes Magazine looks at ten technologies which could dramatically affect our future. Haptics, anyone?
January 18, 2006
Synthetic Worlds
It's my job to alert you when there's something startling new afoot in the world of technology, especially when that something new is creating an entirely new marketplace. That something new is the world of online reality games.
I'm not talking video games, I'm talking about huge, multi-player fantasy games, played online, where characters and "virtual land" are traded --- for real cash. It is not hyperbole to say that the economies of these virtual worlds exceed, in size, the economies of some countries in the real world.
"Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games" by economist Edward Castronova should be required reading by anyone who wants to impress their client with some mind-blowing insight into a new economic frontier.
January 17, 2006
Don't be so judgmental
In less time than it took you to read this sentence, you've already judged the value of this website. My proof? Some Canadians told me.
January 10, 2006
Cylinders
As the world becomes engorged with digital media, it's fun to look back to some of the very first technology to capture sound. Ever wonder what Teddy Roosevelt sounded like? Listen. Or would you like to hear Shackleton talking about his trip to Antarctica? Listen.
The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization project has preserved 5,000 wax cylinders.
July 13, 2005
Podcasting
June 08, 2005
Cubes
May 05, 2005
Shopping Buddy
A portable computer for your shopping cart? This project sounds about as realistic as Time-Warner's two-decade long attempt to figure out how to do interactive television.
April 20, 2005
Louzy Grammer
Marketing are bad for brand big and small. You Know What I am Saying? It is no wondering that advertisings are bad for company in America, Chicago and Germany.
March 28, 2005
Ourmedia
A new website will publish your digital media for free ... forever. Welcome to Ourmedia, a "free, not-for-profit effort to create a global home for grassroots media." The founders hope that the site will become a repository of shareable digital media, including documentaries, student films, grassroots political advertisement and artwork.
February 10, 2005
My card, my Wang
I was cleaning out a drawer and ran across this proof of my nerdiness, a membership card for the International Society of Wang Users. Remember the beloved old Wang computer?
(In Condoleezza Rice's Senate confirmation hearings, she referred to the State Department's outmoded computer systems. ""People are still using Wangs ... not that there's anything wrong with Wangs.")
January 24, 2005
Talking Street
As the use of cellular phones grows, marketers have many new means of reaching consumers. Here's an unusual business that offers walking tours of Manhattan, narrated via your cell-phone. For example, a tour of lower Manhattan, narrated by Sigourney Weaver, takes you from the rise of the skyscraper to the stock market crash of '29 to the rebuilding of downtown. Corporate sponsors anyone?
July 26, 2004
How do they do that?
March 23, 2004
Immersion Point
February 20, 2004
Free teleconference service
FreeConference.com
A great dial-in teleconferencing solution for free. You just set up your call as little as 90 minutes in advance and distribute the call-in number to the folks calling. The organizer pays nothing, and participants pay only their usual long distance.
November 17, 2003
Inventions of the Year
From iTunes to third-world water purifiers to getting the fish in your aquarium to glow in the dark. Browse through Time Magazine's Coolest Inventions of the Year.
November 12, 2003
Embrio
A new personal transportation vehicle from Canada may challenge a market Segway currently owns exclusively. This one actually looks like something even George Bush would look good falling off of.
September 25, 2003
Better Off Without E-Mail?
David Pogue writes a regular column for the New York Times "Circuits" section. I subscribe to an addendum to that column, which he distributes via email. Here is a segment of that newsletter. I think Jay would have loved this:
From the Desk of David Pogue: Better Off Without E-Mail? ===========================================
You already know that individuals and businesses worldwide are struggling to fix e-mail. The spam, the viruses, the irrelevant forwarding, the insipid joke mailing lists . . . whatever productivity gains e-mail once offered are rapidly being offset by the time we spend weeding through the chaff.
So far, though, nobody has gone as far as suggesting that we're better off without e-mail entirely. Until now. John Caudwell is the millionaire head of Phones 4U, a chain of high-end cellphone stores in the U.K. Last week, in a move that's causing shockwaves among, well, just about everybody, he banned all internal e-mail among his 2,500 employees. (They're still allowed to correspond with customers, suppliers, their repair division and so on.) Mr. Caudwell says he wants his company to conduct their transactions by phone or face to face.
September 22, 2003
Grand Canyon
September 05, 2003
The impact of camera phones
September 04, 2003
Brainpop
If only school was this beautifully designed! Brainpop is an educational site offering content on over 300 different subjects. The site is used by 15% percent of U.S. school districts. Two million children watch BrainPOP movies each month. Teachers and parents love the site, as it's a great "homework helper."
View Requires that your computer be able to show "Flash" animation.
August 18, 2003
Have fun in the dark!
Yes, you too can enjoy your next blackout without the hassle of batteries with these attractive crank-powered radios, flashlights, and cell-phone chargers.
August 12, 2003
Kiddie kalls
A study in Britain reveals that of children in the age group of five to nine, one in nine actually has their own cell phone! Children, in fact, are the fastest growing segment of mobile users. What's fueling the increase? "Pester power."
July 28, 2003
Divorce by cell-phone
A Malaysian court has ruled that it's legal for a man to divorce his wife via text message:
Sharia judge Mohamad Fauzi Ismail declared that the divorce declaration was valid and that as such the marriage between the plaintiff Azida Fazlina Abdul Latif and defendant Shamsudin Latif was annulled, the Utusan Malaysia newspaper reported. Mr Shamsudin was said to have sent Ms Azida a text message saying: "If you do not leave your parents' house, you'll be divorced". Although such a notification of divorce may seem astonishingly brief to some, under Islamic law men are allowed to divorce their wives simply be saying the word 'talaq' - I divorce you - three times.
July 22, 2003
Backup to the moon
One enterprising company has decided that there's only one truly safe place to store your corporate data: the moon
June 11, 2003
The first email Jay ever sent me
The date was 3/9/91. We had just installed the Quickmail email system across the country. (The first ad agency to ever do so, thank you very much. Remember, the first browser for the World Wide Web wasn't even released until 1993, a full two years later!)
Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the first email Jay Chiat ever sent to me (or probably to anyone, for that matter.) I took a picture of it and tucked it away in a safe place, as I knew it would prove useful some day. I think that day is now.
June 10, 2003
How far we've come
Enter the "Wayback Machine" and revisit 1983. The Chiat/Day New York office had been open for three years. The Mac was a year away from its debut. And in 1983, Motorola introduced the first commercial portable cellular phone. It only weighed two pounds, had enough battery life for a whole 30 minutes of talk time! The cost? A bargain at $3,995 (calling plan not included.)
June 05, 2003
Whatever happened to the Paperless Office?
Here's a fine article on the perpetual promise of a paperless world. (I must print it out and read it later.)
June 04, 2003
We Know Where You Are
The widespread use of surveillance cameras has broad privacy implications. In a study by Hull University, 1 out of 10 women were targeted for “voyeuristic reasons" by male camera operators. Minorities, the homeless, and activists are obvious targets for interested eyes. The "isee" project lets you chart a course through Manhattan which skirts all surveillance cameras.
Go to the website and click ONCE on a map location and wait. (Be patient and don't start clicking wildly. Click ONCE.) A yellow stick figure will appear. It represents you. Now click ONCE somewhere else on the map and wait. (Again, be patient.) The website will draw a map showing you a route which avoids all camera.
For a broader explanation of the project, click here.
Meet-up
Meetup.com is a free service that allows people with a common interest to form a spontaneous gathering. (Supporters of Howard Dean's campaign for President have been using this service to create highly successful grassroots rallies.) There are groups for Buddhists, the deaf, graphic designers, vegans, Jehovah Witnesses, EX-Jehovah Witnesses ... the cities, interests, and possibilities are infinite.
May 27, 2003
There is no spoon
... but there is a phone. The Samsung SPH-n270 is an exact replica of the phone used in the movie "Matrix Reloaded."
May 26, 2003
Travel Robots
Hewlett-Packard is developing a semi-robotic device that lets your "virtual presence" at a meeting feel more life-like. Focus groups report they like the one without arms.
May 23, 2003
Touch Typing
With the increasing popularity (and computing muscle) of PDAs (like Palms and PocketPCs), the search goes on for methods of entering text without attaching a keyboard. This device gets the jayday.org "Weirdest Device of the Year" award.
May 22, 2003
UNN
"All you, all the time. You give us 24 hours, we'll give you you." Researchers are working on an always-on wearable camera that takes pictures automatically as you go about your day, storing them for later perusal and editing.
May 21, 2003
Paperless P.O. box
Jay would have loved this. This company offers Postal Service Mail In Your Email In-Box. How do they do it? You have all your mail sent to this company. They will open your mail, scan it, and email it to you.
What time is it?
May 19, 2003
Powerpointless
Ever wonder would it would have been like if Abraham Lincoln had used Powerpoint at Gettysburg?
May 17, 2003
Your own "blog"
You may be reading this website right now, thinking "Gee, this is kind of cool! I would love to start my own blog. After all, I'm an intelligent human being and I have all kinds of things to say that the people in my real life won't listen to anymore. But I'm sure the masses who troll the web would be FASCINATED by my unique perspective. How do I do set one up?"
Well, this website was built using software from a cool company called MovableType. But if you're not a geek, it's tricky to setup and manage. But they're coming out with a really simple version called "Typepad." It's not released yet, but you can sign up here and they will let you know when it's available.
May 15, 2003
Googling the guests
We've all Googled. And everybody knows Google is just about the only "dot.com" survivor to make it off the iLand. But this article provides some interesting details on the economics of their business, the threats to their future, and how one hotel manager Googles her guests.
May 12, 2003
New tablet PC prototypes
I've never had a chance to use a tablet PC, but a friend of mine who is the head of technology at Capitol One, says that his employees who participated in a beta program refused to give them back. Here's an article that talks about a prototype of a double-jointed portable computer.
Cell phones rule lives
I've bought three different cellphones and each time, at the end of the year contract, I cancelled the service. People kept CALLING me on it. It was very irritating. A new study says that mobile phones have enslaved us. We are emotionally dependent on them for our identity and feelings of self-worth and incapable even of going to the shops without whipping them out at regular intervals to call family and friends for advice.