mostly research stuff
okay, for those of you who have graduated from blogorrea and actually build REAL web sites, with shit that actually does different stuff (like researchzilla!) and need to control what goes on - manipulating digital images, whacking out fancy graphics, controlling the css, custom layout both on screen and within the code …BUT have little to no interest separating from money, or in investing in macromedia’s dreamweaver product, or flash, or - gulp! - a really expensive copy of photoshop or illustrator, then i thought i’d throw out some open source alternatives that you can download for free and toy around with (yeah, that’s how i waste my time, downloading shit i might not use regularly….and you can thank elGoog for now making that download a regular part of your life with their crappy -ass toolbar)
please note that the user interfaces aren’t as slick as the commercial products, but these are all quite useful nonetheless. actually, i’ve used all of their commercial brethren for years, though i’m particularly impressed with gimp ;)
http://www.gimp.org/ - and it runs on both windows and mac! (and others) - basically, this is an opensource version of photoshop, you can use it - for example - if you’re really ugly and want to make yourself fuzzier or smaller…same goes for your friends and family, you can just remove the people you don’t like from photos! neat! “The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.”
http://www.inkscape.org/ - also runs on mac - this is like adobe illustrator - “Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. ”
http://www.nvu.com/ - this is like macromedia dreamweaver, except for that it’s completely free and isn’t now owned by adobe - oh, and it also runs on mac (i know there are many mac users on here, so just wanted to bring that up for you)
http://powerbullet.com/ this will let you crank out simple flash movies for use in crappy, flash laden web sites or shitty and boring presentations to half-dead corporate audiences…please, use it alone, at home, and then spare us the burden of watching crappy flash animations of your dog eating his own puke from the floor.
you know what - and better yet - just work with some of the open source flash files at the open source flash project … or, if you’re feeling really, really geeky, then try assembling your own free macromedia flash compliant movies with these instructions (note that there are others already working on open source flash type software)
enjoy! hopefully i just save a bunch of you about 1,500 bucks - or alternatively, you just spent like 1,500 bucks on this crap from adobe and macromedia and you’re kicking yourself in the ass wondering what else you own that’s also already free…
okay, so remember recently when i explained how there really was a web mail service called gmail that was around before elGoog got crazy and starting asking people for cell phone numbers (and tissue samples)? you can read the entire original thread on this site, including the message from jerry anders, the guy who really explained it all…but then, just when you thought that it couldn’t get any worse, jerry let me know that now sun microsystems is picking on him - and you can help!
how can you help jerry and javeo.com? you could just stop buying products from sun microsystems…but what’s that you say, you don’t even know what sun sells? you’ll never pay sun for staroffice? you’re not alone…then, uhhh, maybe just don’t use java…and that’s okay, because php is gonna kick it to the curb anyways (can i get an ‘amen’?)
so, how do i know that sun is picking on jerry? he sent me a note to fill me in…per this excerpt, “… as you know we were using gmail.net as our web-based email service name until we were run over by Google, with their purchase and release of gmail.com. So, we decide to suspend gmail.net until we could figure out what to do. In the meantime we decided to start using javeo.com as our primary domain name for our new email service — you know, pending legal battles and all that crap. Well, it appears that Sun feels threatened by the Javeo brand name which, according to Sun, causes confusion in the market place with their Java brand name. Javeo [pronounced ja-vA-o], which is a non-java, never before heard of web-based email service, confuses the masses with Java? Sun has threatened a lawsuit if we do not cease and desist. Come on, you’ve got to be kidding! What in gods name did we do to piss-off the corporate gods? We’re a 2-man company with 2,800 pound gorillas sitting on our shoulders. I’m not sure how much longer we can hold out. Maybe we should invite Microsoft into the fight? I’m sure that we’d done something to make them shudder in their foot steps. The saga continues. - JA”
damn it all! and what the shit? like it’s not enough that sun is clinging to elGoog hoping to get a free meal from whatever dribbles down elGoog’s chin as elGoog continues to binge on new pre-internet-OS services…but picking on this tiny company? come on! this is beyond saber rattling…if i were a conspiracy theorist, i’d begin to wonder about how sun and elgoog are in kahootz like this with other companies far beyond javeo…
i wrote this article for my column (drinking from the fire hose) in Competitive Intelligence Magazine, V8, N4, July/August 2005 - published by the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (www.scip.org); and yes, it now also appears on researchzilla…
“I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.” - Woodrow Wilson
At the SCIP 2005 Annual Conference in Boston (where the grass is green and the girls are pretty), I presented a workshop on human capital research geared toward both new SCIP members as well as those new to the subject of getting information from human beings. What follows is an exercise in turning an hour of overhead-driven dialogue into 2,000 words of printable text, a formidable challenge for a Blarney-stone kisser like me.
The subject of source management and mapping is paramount within the framework of our revered competitive intelligence cycle; which is just a rather heady way to say, this matters a lot to people who have to get the work done. For those new to CI, this column refers to sources within the world of gathering information directly from human beings. Some refer to this as primary research, elicitation, or interviewing. While those particular terms differ, sources are always about the same thing: the people at different places working on, around, or near the topics or people that matter to you or your client.
Great research is all about great sources. Understanding, discovering, engaging, and managing sources effectively is the most daunting of all steps in the intelligence cycle.
Those of us who interact with sources regularly already know that when the focus is gathering or eliciting sensitive information, the best sources are most often mid-level managers or employees. These people are close enough to the action to understand the detail, but senior level enough to grasp big picture issues. They also have a knowledge of or connection to other relevant sources who could support your project goals. Consider that all primary sources fall into one of four general categories. Read the rest of this entry »
okay, so maybe this is old news to you - but i was crying out loud when i read the dogging and blogging bit last week…it’s been touched already by drudge, yahoo and others - all originally from the reuters story - but it’s so damned funny that i gotta recap for you…
so yeah, it starts with a giant ad agency (ddb) getting paid to survey consumer awareness of blogging and other trends in london…then ends with some startling findings, “A survey of taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers — often seen as barometers of popular trends — found that nearly 90 percent had no idea what a podcast is and more than 70 percent had never heard of blogging.”
apparently, these people thought that ddb was asking about “dogging“…if you’re like, “dogging? should corporations be dogging too - ’cause i got ideas?” then hold on, because the truth may chill your shit…”Dogging is the phenomenon of watching couples have sex in semi-secluded places such as out-of-town car parks. News of such events are often spread on Web sites or by using mobile phone text messages.”
…and really funny closing item, in the same study, more than half of the folks knew about the phrase “happy slapping” - it’s a “teenage craze that involves assaulting people while capturing it on video with their mobile phones” (knowledge of “happy slapping” blew away podcasting and blogging awareness by multiples of four and 2 respectively…now that says something about the role that technology plays in our lives, right?)
hey, just wanted to let those of you attending info-x this week know that i’m presenting at 3:30 tomorrow on the subject of ‘global competitive intelligence‘ …kinda short notice, i know…for those who know me already, this will be a rare chance to see me clean shaven, showered, with clean hair and all of my clothes on, plus no fucking swears! (yeah, it’s hard, but i gotta behave or they won’t invite me back to these things)…i’m leaving early, got my crunk in gear, then i’ll get all hopped up on caffeine to take the stage…
…my presentation is within the ‘business intelligence‘ section of the info-x conference in new york city at the hilton (you know, where paris hilton gets her burger money fed intravenously from her daddy)…
so yeah, if you’re like “info-x? what the shit? is that another damned firefox extension?” then visit the main site and take a look…some very, very cool speakers alongside me (i’m not worthy, i’m not worthy) in the assorted five main tracks (conference sections) include: scott d’entremont from spoke, francis desouza from imlogic, esther dyson from eduventures, ross mayfield from socialtext, stan wasserman the guru (i interviewed him for competitive intelligence magazine, read all about it), clare hart from factiva, michael schroeck from ibm and many, many other people with cool sounding multi-syllabic names from companies with crazy made-up words for their products!
this blog is mostly safe for work, though i sometimes throw around a 'fuck' or two. you'll find a bunch of my articles from CI Magazine, SCIP online, other research pieces and some other crap. enjoy. there's lost of content here related to getting information about, around, from and through people and organizations...