Candyhog blog

What's right with this picture?

Several things!

1. As always, Gmail themes
2. Conversation view turned off
3. Priority Inbox

Other great Gmail things not seen in this image:

1. Labs: Undo send enabled
2. Labs: Default Reply all enabled
3. Labs: Advanced attachment options enabled

The life Muffet

Imagine my surprise when my curds and whey (i.e., online Scrabble game) were interrupted by this character, 3 inches from my nose:

...Here's what the dramatic descent must have looked like, a snap of the somewhat hasty retreat:

Working hard and hardly working

Time to cry myself a river.

This has been an amazing — and I don't mean that in a good way — couple of years. For me, the recession has meant:

Too much work. Having to do a lot of side jobs even when I have full-time work, so that I have work when the full-time stuff dries up. Working with startups is fulfilling in some ways, but so insecure.

Too little work. Working with startups is fulfilling in some ways, but so insecure. Too many hours I could be working, when I am not working.

Too little predictability. Sometime too much work, sometimes too little, no ability to look ahead and plan accordingly.

Too little play. No money, no predictable time to set aside for play.

Sorry about the complaints. My cheerfulness will return.

A diversion, or a new career direction

Friends, I'm sorry I've been so sparse with posts this month. I've been plowing all my writing energy into the blog at ivi TV, which I am using to explore and build interest in online television broadcasting, something that doesn't quite exist yet, except in fragmented pieces. It would delight me if any of you saw fit to subscribe and comment there, to get conversations flowing.

You can confess your darkest secrets regarding the TV you find yourself watching, anonymously ;-)

 ivi TV is a startup that has in place a solution for delivering encrypted and high-performance (P2P distribution) broadcast TV signals onto PCs. Neat, huh? It's a matter of first signing up broadcasters to join the first Internet Broadcast Network (we're writing the wikipedia page for that as I speak), then getting subscribers...the basic player will be free, and the experience will be as smooth as your traditional TV.

Difference is, you can carry it around on your laptop (and later your mobile device) and eventaully there will be a greater variety of progrtamming than you currently have.

Anyway, I'm thrilled to be part of this interesting venture as it comes together, and am in charge of marketing. If you have any great ideas about how to reach interested people, let me know!

(Skip this part unless you have an interest in marketing: Currently we're blogging and developing a healthy connections on Twitter, at the same time as we are spending time on messaging and material to help broadcasters understand why online TV is part of the future's screen-agnostic approach to viewing content. Articles and event presence will follow.)

I'm still at Microsoft until March, so you can imagine that doing 2 jobs plus everything else (boys, anyone?!) has me a bit busy. Oh yeah, and there are those holidays.

So, fewer blog posts and perhaps a louder silence from the NW than usual when it comes to other communications as well...apologies in advance. But! Email me for updates or with ideas or chat, or call! I can be lifted out of my frenzy for moments of happy catching up!

— Abigail

The weekly YouTube addresses are great but...

How much more impressive is the idea of a "craigslist" for community service?! For everyone who workd full time and has a busy family life besides, here is a way to volunteer in piece-work fashion, finding things that you can do and are interested in with ease and without a lot of advance notice or ongoing commitment.

Genius! Our first Internet presidency is going to rock.

All this said, of course, I'm not knocking the presidential YouTube addresses.

— Abigail

Got iPhone, take artshotz

Isn't this how everyone entertains themselves as they hustle through their afternoon commute?!

— Abigail

Just two examples

...of the rampant post-it obsessiveness in my workplace.

I haven't gushed about these guys lately

How much do I love Visual Thesaurus?! This from the latest Language Lounge column:

We were thrilled a few weeks ago when, scanning headlines in Google News, we came across this one from the Los Angeles Times:

Mercury is shrinking, NASA craft finds; a cool clue: 'lobate scarps'

Our moment of excitement arose not because of a particular interest in Mercury, but because an editor had taken the bold step of letting lobate ("lobe-shaped") appear in a headline, fully accessible to the general public, without a gloss.

Visual Thesaurus is consistent in its quality as it offers con tent that's always nerdy but also deep, useful, fanciful, interactive or funny, as above.

— Abigail

Good news

I just learned that Joe Biden commutes 100 miles each day, on Amtrak, as a paying customer.

That's not the point of this interesting post on Daily KOS, but it was an interesting bit of info I gleaned.

— Abigail

R-TRIP

Thanke Redmond Trip Reduction Incentive Program, I now have stats to make me feel virtuous because I am taking a vanpool and transit instead of driving.

Congratulations, since August 2008 you have logged 446 miles and reduced 333 lbs of emissions!

Total Trips Reduced:	7 trips
Total Miles Saved:	360 miles
Gallons of Fuel Saved:	17 gallons 1
Total Emissions Reduced:	333 lbs
Total Money Saved:	$195 2
Total Calories Burned:	0 calories 3

I think it's a little unfair to say I've burned zero calories because I do in fact opt to walk rather than take a shuttle between the transit center and my building.

I want credit for that!

— Abigail

Microsoft acting like a startup

They'll have to resolve their server problems before I am able to, but I'd like to try Photosynth.

~ Abigail

Didn't take long

I already broke my own new rule. Geez.

— A

Somebody got an upgrade

A friend of mine whom I'll call Daisy just got a massive upgrade to her workspace.

Note, there's now room for Daisy to actually use a mouse while also following a walkthrough guide.

— Abigail  

A full day

 

The day started as usual, at a ridiculous hour. But, I took the opportunity to notice it's getting darker in the mornings as we head into winter and that we have a hell of a lot of electric lines in front of our house.

Lunch was a somewhat homely meal of baked turkey and corn, but it was surprisingly tasty. I amended with horseradish sauce, and made sure the gravy was kept to a minimum.

Dinner was, I'll admit it, liquid as we caught up with the friends next door and watched the kids play and I shirked my responsiblities. That'll explain what I'm doing up at 3:11  catching up on the work I blew off. There is always a darn piper to pay!

— Abigail

Horrifying!

A typo I made in the headline of the previous post, now expunged. Shouldn't blog before coffee, at 5:XX A.M. Ever. Again.

— A

Surprise composting

One thing that has surprised me — there are a few — about Microsoft is the fervor for recycling and the sophistication of the program. And an extensive composting program includes cutlery made of potatoes. It's not quite there yet as a solution, since the forks warp and bend throughout your meal, becoming sorta useless and most definitely comical. But everyone is good humored about it, of seems. More good Indian food today at the caf, with funny fork.

— A

When RT cleans, it's no small project

For the Truth Stranger Than Fiction dept.

Gawker totally nuked the fridge with this post. I mean who can take an interest in regular-style posts about the exploits of interns anymore?

– Abigail

Hey!

As far as I can tell,  a Firefox update broke Twitterfox again and I'm annoyed.

Just when you get something to work for you, it breaks. Like my computer refusing to power up this week. I had to hand it over to the Apple Store for an undisclosed amount of time. Grrr.

I should be cursing Apple for the problem, and for the graphics redraw issues I was also having (sudden flannel and primary colored blocking across the screen, seemingly tied to the  3D rendering).

But, no, Apple is Apple and thus I am thanking them for making my iPhone be enough of a mini-computer that I can run Twitterrific and manage my email while my computer is in the shop.

Oh, and restore my Time Machine files to an account on Richard's iMac and continue work untroubled.

One fly in the ointment: Adobe had weird DRM stuff going on with Dreamweaver, and wants me to reinstall the program in order to use it. And I can't do that today, so now I'm all Go Live and hating the learning curve or the program; not sure which.

— A

Now this is what I call work!

My wonderful catering client has regular industry tasting events, and I've been lucky enough to sample the heavenly pho bar, the candy salad to go-go, and many other delights. I thought I was spoiled but wait, it gets better.

I have  a new client, a French-style skincare salon. (You'll see my website design & content go live in the next few weeks). In order to help me write intelligently about their services, I had to endure a deep cleanse facial and a deluxe pedicure. On the house. Poor me.

The pedi was the best I've ever gotten, and the facial was sheer heaven. No wonder celebs are all over this place.

— Abigail