This is so Cool

I just found this site. It has today's front pages from 484 different newspapers from around the world. The front pages are updated every day.

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

Ski Spree

We went skiing last weekend -- cell reception was terrible, but the snow was pretty good.

Why buy VoIP devices?

Why buy a dedicated video phone when you can purchase a Webcam and use it with one of several free or extremely inexpensive softphone services? There are several emerging VoIP companies from IM-based PC-to-PSTN services. All these videophones have a disadvantage in competing against newly enabled IM-based video communications offered by providers with tens of millions of users; Skype, GoogleTalk, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger are good examples.

Also, my experience shows that videophones aren't robust enough for companies to use. That's because they are not well-integrated with applications likely to be used by workgroups.

VoIP videophones are not a good substitute for larger conference and presentation devices from companies like Polycom. Power users are not going to ditch their satellite dishes in favor of VoIP videophones.

Michael Kraft and Robert Enholm have written an excellent article called "GC Tech Wish List for 2006" that will gives me some good ideas.

They highlight six items:

1. Faster Communication.
2. Extranets.
3. Billing Software.
4. Document Management Software.
5. Electronic Data Discovery Software.
6. Document Assembly/Contract Process Software.

There's a lot of food for though in the article.

Oh, and King Kong is about 3 1/2 hours too long.

New Toy

Here's another software thing for Skype that's pretty cool.

http://www.orb.com/skype/index.html

It's free voicemail. It's weird -- Skype charges for voicemail, but I can get this for free. I can't tell how these guys are going to make money. Anyway, I'm starting to amass a big set of free Skype add-on tools that work pretty well. Orb and Festoon are my favorites so far.

I gotta get outside.

Old screenshot from Christmas eve, from my apartment.

A scary effect that T-Ball sent me.

Hanging out with my Webcam

Here are my skype buddies on Festoon -- I'm in the window in the middle on the bottom. Betcha can't tell it's me.

Hi Everybody

I have a few days off over the holidays, so I've decided to geek out on the internet. Daisy (the wonder dog) got a stuffed pet giraffe for Christmas. Go Daisy! One of the more fun things I've been doing over the past few days is playing with my new Logitech video camera. The best software I've found is Festoon -- a plug in for Skype and Google Talk.