Do they still show your own full body image as you walk by? When SARS was on everyone's lips, it was interesting watching people go by... some wanted to stop and look, while MANY others wanted to race by without seeing for themselves. It gave new insight to me on the meaning of the cliche "whistling by the graveyard" and how prevalent the desire to hide from the truth is.... and just how wide spread the practice of ignoring symptoms of treatable diseases (until the disease is no longer treatable) might really be. - David HC Soul
No, the lady walked over, aimed something that looked like a gun, then moved onto the next person in the car. It went so fast I didn't have much time to be freaked out until she was gone. Our driver explained that it was a new kind of thermometer that looked for SARS victims. - Robert Scoble
Too bad... I was fascinated by the image and where all the "hot spots" are - I was trying to decide whether the left side of my face seeming to be distinctly warmer than the right side had any significance when they asked me to move along as I was delaying the line a bit. - David HC Soul
You know how many moms would kill for a thermometer like that? That's even easier that chasing a kid to use that thermometer that goes in the ear. We sure have come a long way from the glass rod with the mercury that goes in the mouth for 5 minutes that was used when I was a kid. - April Russo
sars got that tech going .. disaster=progress - Gregory Lent
i commented on this elsewhere, but moms or anyone else can buy these things now. you can find cheap ones for less than $50, but that is unfortunately still several times more than a cheap drugstore digital thermometer, and the accuracy of the infrared thermometers tends to be only +/- 2 degrees on the cheap ones... you could tell if someone was REALLY feverish but not check for a low-grade fever reliably. - Karim
if he's good enough for scoble, he's good enough for me - friended! - Adam Singer
Apparently I do =D And I'm guessing those receiving your shoutouts would agree, don't you think? - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
Tina: one reason why I say it's more important to pick carefully who you are following is just this reason. Why is anyone following someone just because I talked about them? That seems that you're setting yourself up for disappointment. I might not choose the people I'm following as carefully as you might (in fact, I have plenty of evidence that I'm not that careful at all). - Robert Scoble
the fact that Robert follows me is major evidence of his carelessness - Sean Reiser
Yeah, Sean, I've been meaning to talk to you about that! :-) - Robert Scoble
Mathew: you telling me you aren't smart? Damn... - Robert Scoble
Robert, like it or not people respect your opinion. While you following someone may very well not be a recommendation, you specifically mentioning them can be. And that's not a bad thing. FF needs as much positive exposure as it can get, and I'm just happy to see someone with a wider reach doing just that. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)
But still I have no idea for an @ profile like webhat : ) Cool! Come on webhat, ff is yours. - Erhan Erdogan
When Robert started following me on FF my feed was dominated by upcoming Massachusetts events and political youtube videos. I've had smarter content since then, but I did notice he wasn't being very selective with follows. :-) - Bruce Lewis
Robert: I hate doing that too... but get on it or you end up with a whole shoe-box full of receipts like I did a couple years ago... Not pretty when I got the call from my accountant! - Mark VandenBerg
Wow you followed my cause I think I am smart, what the heck did I say to deserve that! :-) - Bill Pennington
via twhirl
Bill: that's not a very low bar, if you think about it. How many people in the world would know about wordpress and would link to articles about it? In my experience not many. - Robert Scoble
Fair enough I will try to live up to the inclusion on your list of smart people - Bill Pennington
via twhirl
Robert: I didn't mean that as a bad thing (that i friended him just because you friended him) - but the fact that you pointed him out to me meant he was probably interesting. I've friended a few people you pointed out and almost ALL turned out to be great people. It's not a blind follow, I respect your opinion. - Adam Singer
Katie: my favorite restaurant, Tres Amigos, is on Kelley. - Robert Scoble
Yes yes...good stuff! We walk there when I visit! - Katie
I used to live right by Tres Amigos. Loved that place. Who needed to cook? - todd
Exactly. I think we eat there at least twice when I visit and I visit once a year at least. And we spend at least every morning at the Coffee Company not as much for the food as much for the meeting spot. - Katie
Katie and todd: makes me think we should do a FriendFeed meetup there soon! - Robert Scoble
If I get up there, I"ll have to mention it. I was hoping for the holidays but I may have to work. - Katie
“You never hear about Microsoft Dynamics on Twitter or FriendFeed, but when I was in China last week I was watching an entire supply chain switch to it.”
Now is that saying something about Twitter/FriendFeed or about Microsoft Dynamics? =) - RAD Moose
RAD: talking about enterprise software isn't as interesting as cat photos. - Robert Scoble
That's not completely true, lolcatz about enterprise software are fun too :) - Daniel W. Crompton
We are going to start using MS Dynamics for our Help Desk system (Nelnet, Inc. NNI) - Susan Beebe
As a former admin/developer, there really isn't much exciting to talk about - Wayne Arthurton
I kind of wish we'd look into it for our help desk. I hate Remedy (it needs a remedy), and we've already got our heads so far stuck into Outlook, Exchange and SharePoint that it might make sense. I'm no expert on these things, though, so I could be totally wrong. - MiɳiMagɘ (Sexy Scimitar)
Define your terms... Dynamic AX? GP? CRM? We use them all and, as a general rule, they are solid. To anyone contemplating CRM, consider publishing the Outlook client via 2008 Terminal Services. It will make your life much simpler. - John Denver
I think the Microsoft Across America events I attended were CRM. I am rather clueless beyond all that. - MiɳiMagɘ (Sexy Scimitar)
It is popular in India too, especially for small businesses. I know a couple of rapidly growing solution providers implementing and customizing Microsoft apps and not able to keep up with the load. - Dorai
It really does work well with Outlook and thus it makes it easier to go through the same processes. Their early versions were a big buggy when it first came out, but in the last year the program just flies and they did good with it, beats the heck out of SAP if you are already using Outlook by all means. - Barbara Duck
Speaking of SAP things must be a little tight there, working on SAP in "Second life", maybe the customers are more friendly there (grin). SAP has software that goes beyond CRM but that is a large part of it..http://feedproxy.google.com/~r... - Barbara Duck
There's a web based version as well which I have not had time to play around with yet, and I can't remember if it is out of beta yet, but I should connect it to my "Office Live" set up which is solid as a rock and works with the desktop applications very well. - Barbara Duck
Not sure why, but there are some sharp MS-platform minds on Twitter, and there are some sharp MS focused folks here of FF. I'm a mostly MS focused guy and our podcast has plenty of info on it from our collective experience with the products. I guess you just have to find them. - Eric @ CS Techcast
"TiVo becomes the latest Silicon Valley company to resort to laying employees off as it “manages through the challenges presented by a difficult economic climate,” as well as what it, perhaps euphemistically refers to as “a rapidly evolving retail consumer market.”
Perhaps “devolving” would be the more appropriate verb choice. Or does TiVo know something about other changes in consumer habits, in addition to the evidently growing consumer fad of, well, consuming less." - Chris White
Do layoffs mean you maybe hired more full-timers than you should have? Perhaps the time is right for us all to become consultants. - Daniel J. Pritchett
Don't they need someone to deliver pizzas? - Mona N.
Daniel: TiVo's headcount has remained pretty steady over time. There are a lot of companies more deserving of the 'you hired too quickly and now you pay the price' snark than TiVo is. This is a sad day for TiVo and many of my friends who work there. - Kevin Fox
I ♡ TiVo. We have two, including a Series 1 and an HD. They pioneered this market and should have gotten much bigger than they have. Great product. - Louis Gray
Louis, I feel the same way. There are just a handful of products / services that are in the same class as TiVo in my book. - Mike Doeff
The problem TiVo ran into (and WebTV also) was that the cable/satellite companies control everything. Once they partnered with companies with better UIs, they created internal projects to build their own DVRs, and then ended the partnerships. Getting a box from your provider became the default compared to getting a 3rd party product. It's an unfortunate reality of business that there are strategic issues beyond user experience that determine success. It's the primary reason we haven't seen an Apple DVR. - Chris White
But we have seen an Apple phone, and arguably the situation is pretty similar there. - ⓞnor
@nor, Apple negotiated a great deal with AT&T, as far as wireless contracts go, but they still had to sign a 5-year exclusive. The cable market in particular is different because it's regional, which just becomes a huge convoluted mess. Better luck will probably come from using broadband than trying to navigate the cable twisty passages. - Chris White
@nor: By that analogy, is Android the generic mobile provider's alternative? - Kevin Fox
Tivo made it impossible for me to cancel my account with them a few years back (no option on their website, even though I had added by cc# there, and an intolerably long wait on the phone). My credit card was about to expire, so I figured it wasn't a problem (just a few extra months of billing), but then they continued to charge me even after the card expired (the new card had the same number with a different expiration date). Anyway, I don't feel too sorry for them, and I don't plan to buy from them ever again. - Paul Buchheit
Paul, the credit card companies are funny about these recurring charges. Even after I've changed numbers on the same account for fraud reasons, I've continued to get recurring charges from some companies. Luckily I've never had a problem with TiVo because I bought out the contract and then gave it away to someone. - Chris White
Just one more useless commodity that needed to bite the dust as soon as home DVR'ing with traditional services was implemented. - tony
I'm kind of surprised at the antipathy I'm seeing here for TiVo. I can understand if their CS department somehow slighted you, but I have not had that experience and I have owned 4 separate TiVo's over the years, some with lifetime subscriptions. Bottom line, the TiVo has the easiest, most powerful platform for scheduling recordings and watching TV that I have ever used. At the very least, I would hope that Scientific Atlanta, etc., would take notes but almost everything else out there is crap (cont'd) - Phil Glockner
Ah, the company that singlehandedly screwed the ad business :) - Patricia
comparatively. TiVo has fought and scraped for so long on a completely slanted playing field, and they are a true underdog. I'm glad that projects like MythTV are starting to mature, and perhaps that is the future of television, but for now I will stick to my Series3. - Phil Glockner
Phil, my comments weren't antipathy. I thought TiVo did a great job on user experience. What I was saying was they didn't have a strategic business advantage, and that is often what is necessary for long term success. - Chris White
Thanks Daniel and Chris. Chris, I see what you are saying. If you look at TiVo's history of partnering with companies (like DirectTV) and then getting screwed over by their partners, they aren't trying to be elitist in the market. They are willing to make a deal. But the rest of the industry would prefer to stick with the lowest common denominator, or (like Dish) just rip off their technology without apology. - Phil Glockner
I never had the need to experience TiVo since Comcast and Timewarner both more or less had DVRs provided for me. Maybe I missed out on something great, but either way, I hate to hear the layoffs keep coming. - Mike
I've used Comcast and Timewarner DVRs, and I must say that TiVo is superior. Of course I still wouldn't bother to get a TiVo because I have a good-enough DVR in my cable box. - Gabe
Did you really eat the dessicant gel? Damn man I nearly fell out of my chair and darn near choked to death on my tea from laughing so hard!!!! - J. D. Ebberly
For me, that would be anything from Crystal Waters. At one time, Gypsy Woman and 100% Pure Love were high on the list. I just deleted them from iTunes after years of skipping them. - Louis Gray
i used to love Rhianna's Umbrella song - now its turned off as soon as it starts - Stephanie Pickett
any thing by or with Kanye West... Yes he's talented but every time he issues a statement or does an interview I want to slap the taste out of is mouth. Along that line of thinking you can throw "The Puff Daddy" (or what ever the kids are calling him now) to my needs to be slapped up list... - J. Abdul-Qahhar
Almost everything I played when I was on the air. You think YOU'RE tired of the stuff you hear on the radio. After the 50,000th play of "Heartache Tonight," the violent thoughts begin. - Chris Baskind
No such thing! I can go the other direction, but once it's liked, it's liked forever. - Josh Haley
Most songs off the classic greatest hits albums (you know the ones I'm talking about) by the Eagles, Steve Miller, The Doors and Eric Clapton. - Jon Price
I will love Depeche Mode until the day that I die, but if I hear "Enjoy the Scilence" one more time.... - Helen Sventitsky
Finally got rid of the earworm, and thought of one. Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" - Cyndy
Louis, usually every sony I like :) I have a bad habit of looping... Like, playing the song 100 - 200 times ...again and again ... eventually the magic wears off and I start hating the song :))) - Alemsah
I'm theorising that great music from 1976 and before has remained great, whilst anything that has been labelled as great since the end of 1976 has, in fact dated. The further we get from 1976, the quicker new so-called great tracks age and cause us annoyance. ;-) - Slippy Lane
"we’re getting to the point where the App Store is in jeopardy of getting destroyed because it’s being overrun with 99¢ shovelware, with an ever growing number of developers competing for a slot in the charts." - Robert Scoble
via Bookmarklet
I'd personally like to see developer fees to keep the crap away - Adam
The Top 100 free/paid lists would have to be replaced with something else. Maybe a Digg style system to get on the 'top' list? - Jim Bergman
If u think this is bad u should see the state of 3rd party open source freeware for the Nokia N810 over at maemo.org. - Tokyo Dan
via feedalizr
You're like those Swatch-watches back in the 80's...EVERYone had to have one. - Josh Haley
I'm happy if I have toys to play with, I love Social Media and the cool information that's floating round. I just enjoy sharing with people. I did discuss yesterday - with a friend I'm working on a stealth project with - that I really want people I know to subscribe more than I care about the anonymous masses subscribing. My father and a couple of my best friends read my blog, and they are the people I write it for. Now if I could just get them to follow my Twitter or FriendFeed... :) - Daniel W. Crompton
