IBM Happenings

There were a lot of announcements from IBM this past week. Some of the headlines may be of interest.
Index of all headlines is here.

Blogging Radio Program

Mena Trott and I will be guests on Sanjog Aul’s AVVAL Radio Talk Show on Technology. The current series of programs is entitled "Managing Technology The Right Way!", and the particular focus tomorrow will be blogging. Mena is co-founder of Six Apart which produces Movable Type (the blogging software which I use) and TypePad which is a blogging service. If you are interested, just click on the listen link. The broadcast will be at 11 AM EST tomorrow morning (Friday, July 27). If you want to call in with a question the number is 1-866-233-7861.

The backup is http://www.businessamericaradio.com

Other
patrickWeb stories about Internet Technology
Upcoming Engagements

AmericanTowns.com

AmericanTowns.com is an online resource where you can find local information related to daily life in Fairfield County in Connecticut, Westchester County in New York, Staten Island New York, Northern New Jersey, Long Island New York, Detroit and some Boston suburbs. The folks at American Town Network, the parent company, have a vision to make the Internet and it’s resources local. I think they are on the right track toward building a business that can serve a very real need. Using Google, it is very easy to find many things, but how do you find out what time the local Visiting Nurses Association will be offering flu shots? (read more)

One Click Setup

There have been numerous
press articles lately abouTt the security problems with Internet Explorer. Some companies and government agencies have
been recommending to their employees that they switch to a different browser. An obvious choice is the Opera browser.
I have
written about the virtues of the Opera browser quite a few times and I know that many readers use it. It has now
gotten easier than ever to make the switch. Opera Software just released a series of one-click setups that
instantly change Opera’s toolbars, menus, keyboard shortcuts, and mouse gestures. One of them emulates an IE-like
look and feel. Once you get the hang of the Opera browser you can begin to customize it to your own preferences.
If you want to check out Opera, take a look here.

IBM Happenings

There were a lot of interesting announcements from IBM in the past couple of weeks. Some of the headlines may be of interest.

Here are the latest …

Riding Through New England

I am overdue to write an update about WiFi and I promise to do so soon. In the meantime, I can’t resist sharing about a motorcycle trip through New England that I was fortunate to make this week. The weather forecast was marginal but my brother and I had planned for quite some time to visit some friends in New Hampshire. It was not raining at the outset — the first drops of precipitation did not arrive until I had crossed the Connecticut – Massachusetts border. Then it poured. I stopped along the way and climbed into the rain gear and continued on to North Adams, Massachusetts where my brother, who was traveling from the Utica, New York area, and I had planned to meet. After lunch we persevered (we have both had a lot of experience at riding in the rain) through the bad weather continuing through Vermont and to our destination at Lake Winnipesaukee, near Meredith, New Hampshire. It was a long 300 miles.

The visit with friends was quite nice including a ride around the lake and a vigorous hike up Red Hill Summit. The trail was 1.75 miles long and reached an altitude of 2,029 feet. The fire tower on the top of the summit offered some spectacular views. See the photo gallery to see what I mean.

The 300 mile return trip was much drier and much hotter. Ninety degrees on a cruising motorcycle can be very uncomfortable — but I will take it over rain any day. To call the back roads of New England scenic is an understatement. Majestic mountains, rivers, streams, covered bridges, and rustic towns against a backdrop of beautiful blue sky made it a memorable ride. The Garmin Street Pilot kept me aware of where I was and it makes it much more of an adventure than boring interstate highways. The most challenging part of the trip was after dark. There are no street lights or good road markings between Stockbridge, Massachusetts and Danbury, Connecticut. That last part of the journey home was a very long 75 miles.

Doo Wop – Why Don’t They Stop

Most of the entries in the Favorite Concerts page are classical music concerts, but last night at The Ridgefield Playhouse was another kind of "classical" music. The "Doo-Wop and Oldies Spectacular" featured classics of the 50s & 60s. It was a real trip down memory lane with Emil Stucchio and the Classics (& Till Then& ), The Shangri-Las (& Leader of the Pack&  and & Remember   Walking in the Sand& ), Kenny Vance and the Planotones (& Looking for an Echo& ), and the Emotions – ("The Nearest Thing To Heaven").

The Origins of Doo Wop are debated but most would agree that it evolved from a merging of pop, gospel,
blues, jazz and swing elements in the late 1940′s and early 50′s. Doo Wop music is, innocent, joyous, romantic and, some would say, almost spiritual. Doo Wop was vocal group harmonizing at it’s best.

Watching these performing groups on stage was inspiring. A little arithmetic can quickly show that most of the performers were 60+ and some may have been 70+. Some looked it, some did not. All of them had great voices and rhythm. If you look at their concert schedules on the web sites you can see that they are performing almost constantly — one group claimed 208 concerts last year. Why are they doing this? Why don’t they stop and retire? It is possible some lived past their means or not invested in their future during the hay days and now need the money. Others may do it out of loyalty to other members of their group. Some may not know what else to do. Most however, are probably doing it because they love it. You could see the sparkle in their eyes and the spring in their step. As the audience raved, the performers were inspired, and the cycle continued. It was a great night.

Extreme Blue and Global Village

This was a very special week for me as I was privileged to spend a lot of time with students. On Tuesday I met with Extreme Blue interns — top computer
science and business students from some of the top universities in America. The Extreme Blue program, which began in 1999 at an IBM facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts, operates at a half dozen IBM locations around the world and brings together incredibly talented young people to work on projects for the summer. The students are split into teams of three or four computer science students and a business school student. Each of the projects has a sponsor from somewhere in IBM and a an IBM mentor who provides advice and support during the project.

The projects are very real and result in significant contributions to the company and also to the development of the students. In the final week the students get to present their ideas and progress to senior executives of the company, including the chairman of the board. The projects I saw were impressive and far-reaching focused on database technology to enable doctors to be more effective in prescribing medications or treatments, sophisticated algorithms for provisioning of grid computing resources, a workflow model to improve efficiency for researchers, enhancements for help-desk support for users, and technology to enable IBM consultants to find business partners for specific kinds of client projects. All of the projects were built using using the very latest in open standards technologies. (read more)

Five Percent: Epilogue

After 48 hours, the points have still not show up at Marriott Rewards, so they were correct when they said it would take 3-5 days (to move data from server to server). I do not mean to condemn Marriott — it may be that American Express sent the data in a proprietary format that requires special processing on Marriott’s part. (That is why we need web services standards).

Shortly after the attempted transaction I got the following email from American Express. It shows they are on their way, and committed, to becoming an on demand business. (read more)

Marcus Dairy Cycle Day

Today was Marcus Dairy Cycle Sunday at the O’Neill Center, on the Western State Connecticut University’s Westside campus in Danbury, Connecticut. The scenic Westside campus, located off exit 2 of I-84, has a 32,000-square-foot arena for indoor vending and activities, multiple paved lots for outdoor vending and plenty of parking — perfect for a motorcycle day and just minutes away from Marcus Dairy, which has been home to Cycle Days for quite a few years. It has been mentioned in a number of motorcycling books.

Dan Powers from IBM and Dan Smith from General Motors and I left from Newtown, Ct. and rode to the campus (and then afterwards rode around Candlewood Lake). The admission fee was $12 and the proceeds support local charities. Last year, Marcus Dairy distributed more than $75,000. The event lasted from 8:00am to 4:00pm and featured a bike show with cash prizes and trophies, leather fashion show, live music, dyno testing and vendors selling everything from custom bikes to leather to new and used parts and everything in-between. There was an incredibly interesting assortment of bikes and many very nice people. The weather was perfect. Afterwards, Dan Powers and I stopped by "Down the Hatch" for lunch.

On the day prior to Cycle Day, I rode the Fatboy from Pennsylvania to Connecticut. Here are a few pictures I took along the way. And, here are the pictures from Cycle Day.