Do open houses sell houses?
Shill! I really like our Real Estate blog. This entry is on open houses. It’s fun to watch people fighting in the comments.
Should it be free?
Outstanding article on whether software should be free or not. Even if you’re not in the industry, you should read this.
Jason Butler - Twitter
Because it’s important that I have an outlet for 140-character updates on my life through the day. Follow at your own risk.
All hail Universal Hub
Excellent article in the Phoenix about Adam Gaffin and Universal Hub. I’m not stealing all our hyperlocal community ideas from him, but maybe a couple…
Beat the long tail with 1,000 true fans
Incredibly interesting article about how to survive as a creator without having to rely on the blockbuster. Must read.
Wow, I’m way behind on my website postings; impending baby and multiple launches at work are conspiring against me.
Today we did our “stock up on everything you can think of” run to BJs. Now, both freezers are full, and we should be able to live for a couple of weeks without leaving the house when the baby arrives. I’m wracking my brain for other baby-prep tasks I need to do.
Anyway, on to the links…
AngryJournalist.com
Anonymous journalists tell us what they’re angry about today. Quite a bit of inside baseball, but not too different from what I see from time to time in the newsroom.
This is also a good example of what happens to the signal:noise ratio when the social-news hordes descend on a site.
Yet another reason to boycott Best Buy
I have never had a good experience at Best Buy (or their not-at-all-missed competitor Comp USA). They take advantage of the non-technical customers and outright lie when they are caught. I hope that a more activist Congress will reign in some of the corporate excesses.
50 tricks to get you more productive
It’s always good to remind yourself of little ways to keep moving the chains. I’m pretty good about most of these, but I really need to work on a couple of them — especially working on the important things, instead of just the pressing things.
Learn to demo
Good advice from Antonio Rodriguez on how to prep yourself for demoing your product.
Talent Wars in Boston
Xconomy does a nice write up of the current state of the technology labor market in Boston. It’s a good time to be a techie on the Red Line.
How to be a consultant
Long, insightful article. I faced many of these same issues back when I was consulting.
Top 10 reasons we deleted your comment
The Times’ City Room blog describes how they handle blog comments. Seems quite reasonable, though some in the comments disagree.
The treadmill desk
Shimon Rura has a great article talking about how he set up a treadmill desk. I read my NetNewsWire on the treadmill in the morning, but I’ve never looked at trying to type. I’ll have to see if I can improvise something around this.
Accident victims face grab for legal winnings
If you are hurt in an accident, you might not be able to get any relief by suing the responsible party. If you win, the insurance company may swoop in and claim the judgment you receive. I can see both sides of this argument, but it still sounds all sorts of wrong.
Misgivings rise with Antarctican tourism
I regret not having been able to see Antarctica while still single and able to travel. In light of the rise in tourism and last week’s sinking of a cruise liner, I worry that it won’t be feasible when we’re ready to travel again.
Rise in holiday call strains mall cops
Nothing heats up the old police blotter quite like the holidays. It must be great fun to break up fights at the mall.
Renting ideas to Fortune 500 companies
Really interesting post from Tim Ferriss about how you can license your ideas to large companies and collect royalties. Beats working, but you have to actually go out and think of useful stuff.
Travel Basics: Moscow
I was trawling our sister site at the International Herald Tribune when I came across their travel blogs, written by the correspondents stationed in each city. The Travel Basics are great primers, not that I’m going to Moscow, or back to Bangkok any time soon.
Fresh pain for the uninsured
Important article from Business Week. Hospitals are outsourcing their collections from the uninsured.
3BR with a mall view
This article about the new condos at the Natick Mall annoyed me in many different ways. This is my favorite quote: “Their $1.6 million, 2,200-square-foot penthouse overlooking JCPenney, the DuGallys said, suits the lifestyle they want for themselves and their Chihuahua, Jasmine.” I always wanted a view of the JCPenney.
China’s deadly pollution
The Times has a long investigative piece this morning on China’s growth policies’ impact on the environment, and the growing blowback. The air was ugly when I was there in 2001; I can only imagine how bad it is now.
Walking scores
This is a neat site that calculates the walkability of any location. My long-time Cambridge apartment gets a 100 out of 100 score; everything you need is within walking distance. My current address only gets a 5. Damn suburbs.
The nerd handbook
s/nerd/geek/g, but otherwise pretty close in a lot of ways.
Literary style by the numbers
Steven Johnson — author of Interface Culture, Mind Wide Open and other excellent books — does a quick analysis of sentence length and word complexity for several prominent authors. Interesting conclusions.
Programming lessons from Sales — sharpen the saw
I’m always trying to find new ways of looking at old problems. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but it’s almost always worth the time investment.
The lottery industry
BS is also prevalent in the business world, as you can see from this entirely content-free quote:
W. Bruce Turner, the chief executive of Gtech, puts it another way. “Gtech has played a key role in fostering the success enjoyed by lotteries today,” he says. “We have grown to be the world’s leading solutions provider to the lottery industry because we focus on creating the greatest value for our customers, which results in higher returns to the good causes they support.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this before — I’m going to be better about updating the blog more often. Here’s some linky goodness to get us back on the right track.
ZipSkinny for Holliston
Neat little application giving you a visualization of all the census data for a given zip code. It’s good info; we’ve dropped all the Massachusetts ones into the crawl.
Oh Joy! Breakfast with the boss
How do you manage work/life balance when other people try to schedule you for breakfast or dinner meetings? I’m going to steal the “buy you lunch to pick your brain” responses.
Jeremy Zawodny hosts a good comparison of software languages and legalese. Pretty funny for those of us exposed to both worlds each day. Read the comments, too; they add a lot to the conversation.
He goes on to answer the question “Why is LEGAL such a [poor] language?” and finds that, among other problems, “it doesn’t use modern techniques like subroutines or standard libraries.” Doing so would save a ton of time and effort. It’d probably also reduce the lawyer’s income.
As he concludes:
Of course, there is one additional reason that legal documents are so long: Many lawyers are paid by the hour.
We have a ton of stuff going on right now, so I apologize for the lack of linky goodness posting. I’m going to try to get back into a daily routine. We’ll see how long that lasts. Anyway, here we go.
I’m sure you guys can deal
My only power trip at work is that I ban sending bad news by email. If there’s the least chance the recipient will react badly to your message, you need to deliver it in person. Even worse are all the examples up at PassiveAggressiveNotes.com. All the posts are worth reading, but this one is expecially funny. I hate when the servers melt.
Awesome sed reference
If the word ’sed’ means nothing to you, you can safely skip this.
Color palettes from art masterpieces
Really interesting examples of color palettes derived from art masterpieces. I still have my trusty Color Index book, but this is another good way of brainstorming color schemes.
Holliston Triathlon
So, this is what was blocking Norfolk Street last weekend. A five-mile swim, followed by a fifteen-mile bike ride and five-mile run would be a good day’s exercise for anyone. One journalistic note, though: the article doesn’t say who actually won the race.
Practical Toy Storage
We’ve been good about not letting the toys take over the house, avoiding the impression that a Toys ‘r Us has exploded in our family room. Still, there’s always more to learn. This article has several good tips about storing toys and integrating them into the family lifestyle.
Yooooouuuuukkkkk
Kevin Youkilis is now also blogging. Anyone who can put together a 20-game hitting streak can do whatever he wants.
Ashland bomb threat
Though near Sadie’s daycare, this didn’t affect her. If you look at the fax that came through, I can kinda see why they interpreted it that way, though.
Tool Snob
Jay’s new site, detailing the latest and greatest in the toolshed. I have a feeling my $19.95 Home Depot power drill will not make the cut.
The right ride
Interactive maps showing safe bike rides in and around Boston. Play around with clicking on the pushpins to get hints about what you need to look out for. The Central Square notes are all spot-on.
Corporate ipsum
When we’re designing webpages, we often put in “lorem ipsum” text as placeholder for real thinking. In the corporate world, we often insert empty jargon into emails as placeholder for real thinking. This little widget helps.
Don’t get taken
Clay auto dealerships have been running ads (disclosure: including in the Globe and on Boston.com) touting a site where they share all the “secrets” of car dealerships, reminding me a little of the old Saturn flat-price ads. I think this is a smart strategy, zagging against the common practices of a lowly-regarded industry. I will be interested to see if their “high-road” strategy makes them more money.
Apocrypha panned
Wow, rarely have I seen a Globe restaurant review this critical.
Holliston Police Station on track
It’s good to see that the new police station is still on schedule. The police are moving into the old Middle School Flagg building; I’m happy to know that my fifth-grade language arts classroom is not longer just metaphorically a jail cell.
33 ways to improve productivity
Interesting nuggets. I’m a bit of a productivity and GTD geek, so I try to do follow quite a few of these strategies. It doesn’t help put more hours in the day, but it helps get more of the important things done.
The Harry-est towns in America
Once upon a time, I worked briefly on community at Amazon, helping launch the PlanetAll-derived Purchase Circles. Here’s another application of that concept: which towns are buying the most Harry Potter books? Sadly, Holliston did not make the list.
BostonWorks is no more
Our partnership with Monster launched today. Congratulations to everyone involved, though I don’t envy Alan for having to port my old browse by commute code. Sometimes things you wrote five years ago linger on far longer then you expect them to.
Battling the bloodsuckers
Bellingham, Medway and Millis are among the towns spraying mosquitos. Apparently the recent heavy rains have made this area a skeeter paradise.
Mark Cuban on commercials for ripoffs
Mavs owner Mark Cuban goes off on the spammy infomercials. I despise all those “work at home and make millions” commercials.
Roger Ebert on his illness
He’s in pretty rough shape, but he will not forgo his own film festival. I miss him on Ebert and Roeper, and hope he gets better soon.
Congress Street vs. Summer Street
I’ve been working at Fort Point Channel (320 Congress Street) for the past couple of years. I’m a little surprised that people are considering either Congress or Summer Street as the next happening neighborhood in town.
ESPN: Can we keep the yelling down?
ESPN has a new ombudsman, and she pulls no punches. WEEI’s endless yelling has dropped my weekly listening from tens of hours to barely tens of minutes.
Take the funny and run
Interesting review of how jokes are stolen and recycled in the comedy world. Denis Leary, Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia do not come off well.
Alert waitress at a restaurant
Inspirational story of a waitress who notices a guy slipping something into his date’s drink.
Entwistle Trial
I snarfed up this domain thinking I’d be able to cover the trial as it was happening. Unfortunately, with so much else going on, I’m not going to be able to do that. So, the domain is up for sale, if anyone wants to make an offer for the good type-in traffic.
How has the Big Dig affected commuting?
My commute from MetroWest to Fort Point has improved greatly. I take the South Boston exit and it drops me 500 feet from my parking garage.
Do parents make better managers?
Forbes says they do. I just don’t want Sadie to throw this line back at me in a few years: “Those who didn’t mind sacrificing for their children did better in the performance reviews.”
What it’s like to work at Netflix
Interesting account of the factory floors of the new economy. Reminds me of December 1998 when I got an all-expense-paid trip to Delaware to pack books for the holiday rush.
Blogging your debt-reduction
Interesting article from the Sunday Times about how people are getting a handle on their debt by blogging about it.
Burnout rescue for non-profit workers
The Young Nonprofit Professionals Network is starting a Boston chapter to help people in the non-profit fields avoid burnout.
Natick Mall soon to be Natick Collection
With all sorts of new fancypants stores: Nordstroms, Nieman Marcus, Burberry, Betsey Johnson, Anthropologie, Hanna Andersson. Does this mean I need to shop somewhere other than Brooks Brothers?
Up-to-date Iraq casualties
One of the awesome things about working at the Globe is that I have access to people who *really* know how to find information. One of the researchers turned me on to this site, which has up-to-date data and analysis about Iraq casualties.
Fan’s Guide to Spring Training
We put up this interactive guide to Fort Myers a couple of days ago. It’s starting to get some really good contributions from readers, improving it far beyond what we could do ourselves.
Staying Hungry
James Hong, of “Hot or Not,” writes about what he needs to do to keep himself hungry. Will he coast, riding his existing cash cow, or will he blow it up for the chance at something bigger?
In praise of the forgotten broiler
If I’d told you I had an appliance that could brown like a grill, was as convenient as your oven, and cooked most food in less than 10 minutes, you’d buy it. But you don’t need to.
Praise is overrated
Now that Sadie is starting to understand me, I need to be more careful in how I construct my sentences. Takeaway: always praise effort, not ability.
Why it is so hard to find backup daycare
We’ve been pretty lucky so far with Sadie. We’ve only had to leave work in the middle of the day a few times in the months she’s been in daycare. I hope that will be even more rare when she goes into the toddler room next month.
The joy of programming
Really nice article on why we program (or write, or paint, or play the violin).
Options on Super Bowl tickets
Interesting article from the Globe about how people bought and sold options on Super Bowl tickets based on the likelihood their team would make it.
Rewrite Windows for $3000
Back when I was consulting more often, I ran into a few clients with unrealistic expectations. This RFP is definitely the best one I’ve seen, though.
Red Sox on TV this year
It’s much harder for us to get to games now, so I’m excited that Fox has released their schedule ahead of time, so that we know which Saturday games are in the afternoon (managable) vs. at night (harder).
Harvard Law School nimrod
I cannot emphasize how much I enjoy reading the Boston Police Department’s blog. Karma can bite you in oh-so-many ways.
How to opt-out of various direct marketing lists
Article from the Times describing how to get off many of the lists. I’m especially excited about not getting any more pre-screened credit card offers. My shredder overheats from the weekly mass-shreddings.
$225k in Homeland Security dollars coming to Holliston
(Sidenote: Items like this are why I like the way we’re starting to do some regional blogs. This item wouldn’t have made it into the paper, but it’s something people will care about so we still publish it online)
Productivity tricks
Some good ideas in here. At some point I’ll write up a little bit on my own systems.
Danny Sullivan interviews Techmeme’s Gabe Rivera Techmeme is an incredible resource for anyone in the industry. In this interview, Rivera has some great insights into how he filters the sources and discovers what’s important. I’m always looking to balance the overwhelming flow of incoming information. Techmeme helps a lot.
iPhone Review
The Chicago Sun-Times thinks the iPhone is nearly perfect.
Why getting married kills your social life
Actually, it wasn’t getting married that killed the social life, it was having the baby. It’s hard to go out to social events in Boston when I must pick up Sadie in Ashland by 5:45.
Is your startup ruthless enough?
Greg Linden is one of my favorite fellow ex-Amazon’ers. Here, he talks about how several prominent startups began in shadier parts of the net.
Yahoo Autos Green Center
A good reference for comparing different hybrid vehicles. When I have to trade in my little sports car for a family truckster next year, this will be my guide.
You can learn a lot from a rich girl
Very interesting article about the perils of consumer credit. “How many hours of work will it take you to buy those jeans?”
The Joe board
The community whiteboard is the best place to keep track of the idiotic things your coworkers say.
SmugMug saves with S3
“Storage as a service” is more efficient in many ways than buying the disks. With all apologies to my friends in the storage business, this is the future for entrepreneurs. Some of the startup ideas I’m playing around with are beginning with the assumption that processing power and storage are essentially free. Ignore those constraints and much more becomes possible.
How to create a pop star
Interesting video about how you can take pretty much anyone off the street, apply a little studio magic, and poof! You have a pop star.
LinkedIn has become essential
Jason Calacanis describes how he’s using LinkedIn to recruit new employees. I actually got this recruiting email (Jason C. and I crossed paths once upon a time, and we are linked on LinkedIn), and though I know no one myself for the position, I did pass it along to a couple of folks.
I used LinkedIn for a couple of my Boston.com positions earlier this year, and had a pretty good response rate, including one outstanding candidate. It’s a good deal, and as Jason C. points out, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than using an executive recruiter. We never got into recruiting as a line of business at PlanetAll, but we did perfect the “Friends of Friends” feature, which has become a core component of LinkedIn and some of the other similar services.
Tower over South Station approved
They are going to build a 40-story tower over South Station. Like it’s not bad enough around here already with all the construction. Egads.
Vitamin
Many of the web’s leading lights get together to write a magazine-style site about web design and development. Upon quick review, it seems similar to A List Apart or Boxes and Arrows. The authors make it worth reading, though.
Will your web app make money?
One of the first articles from Vitamin, working through the calculus of running your own web apps.
Massachusetts Politics Coverage
Our news team put together a nice overview of the political season here, including candidate profiles, issue overviews, etc. This should be a good reference throughout the gubernatorial campaign.
Cute Overload
Several pictures each day of cute little baby animals, serving as a little break in NetNewsWire each day.
I’m getting back into the habit of stashing linky-goodness links into a working file I have open all day. I hope that will let me post these links a little more regularly.
The truth about interviewing
What it means to really get a job at a major software company. Hint: My 1337 php skillz would not make the grade.
The art of sucking down
Another Guy Kawasaki blog posting, this time about how sometimes the best way to get something down is to actually be nice to the person who can help you.
Street closings for the marathon
Mac Daniel has started a blog about traffic and commuting around Boston. Here is his notes on road closings for the marathon.
I’m going to try to spend a little more time on the linky goodness. I’ve been a little lax in how I’ve been stashing my links and notes, and I want to get back to posting the interesting stuff every couple of days.
To make that happen, I’m just leaving an Emacs window open all day to my linky goodness file. I’m dropping items in as I think of them. We’ll see if this makes a difference in how well I can make this work.
So, here we go.
The art of the board meeting
I’ve been reading Guy Kawasaki’s blog for the past few weeks, and I find it consistently entertaining and informative. Here’s a posting about how to compose a board and run a meeting.
WeSmirch
Memeorandum creator Gabe Rivera applies his secret sauce to celebrity news.
Boston Baby doesn’t deliver
This is why we ended up skipping all the baby stores and going to Pottery Barn Kids for our crib and Babies ‘r Us for our glider. I’d love to support small businesses, but sometimes (especially when dealing with the baby) I long for a little ruthless corporate efficiency. P.S., we love our crib and glider. (via Universal Hub)
Why the Edgerrin James deal is a disaster for everyone
“When Arizona inked Edgerrin James to a four-year, $30 million deal Sunday, it marked one of those rare and remarkable meteorological moments when clueless management, disenchanted player, greedy agent and pathetic, delusional franchise all conspire to create the perfect storm of dealmaking.”
I’m afraid many marketers fall in that last camp, thinking that slapping the latest buzzword on their product somehow makes it more competitive. A friend of mine was accosted this week at the fragrance counter in Bloomingdale’s, asked if he wanted “the Hugo Boss experience.” Not surprisingly, he hurried along downstairs to the men’s section where, wouldn’t you know it, there were no actual sales or service people available to help in his actual customer experience.
Making Sustainability Sexy
Marketers take a crack at positioning the concept of sustainability, a concept desperately in need of some pithy talking points.
Stocking Stuffer: The Eyelighter
The folks who make Tinderbox also have some really neat gizmos on their site. I bought the eyelighter for A. a few weeks before the baby arrived so that she could easily navigate the house in the dark. It’s really useful.
Saving Serendipity
We spent a lot of time on this at Abuzz. How do give people precisely what they’re looking for while still exposing them to stuff they never even knew they wanted. This is an important read to anyone working in the media or on the web.
I’ve been a bad, bad blogger; I haven’t posted a new edition of “Linky Goodness” in months. Well, here we go. And, even better, I just wrote up a little script to pull my del.icio.us links and post them here. That little hack should help my linky goodness timeliness quotient.
Teaching Babies Sign Language
Eric Meyer talks about the pro’s and con’s of teaching babies to communicate through sign language. We may take a crack at this.
During the day, I'm director of search and community products for Boston.com, a division of New York Times Digital. My opinions here are, of course, strictly my own.
Travel and Photography
Thailand.
Photo gallery from my Habitat for Humanity project in Thailand, including photos from Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Phuket.
Guatemala
Quick pictures from my Habitat for Humanity project in Guatemala.
China
Pictures from my time teaching English in Yantai, PRC
Tanzania
Travelogue from my safari to Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti
New Zealand
Travelogue from my Habitat for Humanity project in Rotorua, New Zealand
