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I'm on vacation for the next week. (!)

CNN.com - TiVo faces fight of life

Sean Badding, an analyst with The Carmel Group (whoever they are), says:

"The cable train has left without TiVo onboard, and I don't think they're coming back for TiVo."

Mike Ramsey, TiVo CEO, says:

"This brain-dead knockoff stuff is not going to work. People's expectations are going to rise. They're going to hear about TiVo's (features) and they're going to want it."

But what it may come down to is:

"The company, meanwhile, says it has 60 foreign and domestic DVR-related patents and more pending, and won't hesitate to use them in court against competitors it deems infringers."

Tricky.

Andy Budd: An Objective Look at Table Based vs. CSS Based Design

"Web standards and CSS based design are defiantly the way forward. However in our rush to advocate these 'new' techniques, we may end up believing our own hyperbole. Build something up enough and the reality will always fall short of our expectations. By taking a dogmatic approach we risk alienating the very people we are trying to convince."

Right on.

IDs are anchors

I may be the only one who didn't know this, beings I don't keep up with the fast-moving world of markup to the degree I used to, but I just learned yesterday from Design by Fire's excellent Jakob Nielsen makeover that "id=" attributes in HTML can be treated as anchors (like <a name> tags).

Thusly: #profile-container.

Neat!

Reminds me of another idea I (and others) had once, regarding arbitrarily linking to different parts of a page. But it's not quite the same.

MemeFirst: Voter apathy

"A disappointingly low 65 million people voted for American Idol last night, compared to a voter turnout of 105 million (51.3% of the voting age population) at the 2000 US presidential election."

Like Magic

Occasionally, I'm blown away by the advanced state of our world.

While sitting in the coffee shop this morning, doing some pre-commute email, a couple songs played on the sound system that I was grooving on and didn't recognize. It could go ask the people behind the counter, I thought. But since I have wi-fi on my lap, I'll just type the next lyric I hear into Google.

That revealed it was Michael Franti & Spearhead's Everyone Deserves Music.

A check of the iTunes store shows I can download the whole thing for $9.99 (40% cheaper than Amazon—not counting shipping—and without those annoying atoms). I do so and then synch my iPod, so I can listen to it on the freeway.

I groove out on the way to work with, and I'm happy.

By the way, typing this up reveals a big breakdown in Apple's model—you can't link to things in their store. I linked the album to Amazon, even though I bought it from Apple. I wonder if it would be worthwhile for them to create a web interface.

Update: Within minutes, as per usual, I am corrected! Kevin writes in with this link to the aforementioned album. Sez he: "When in the Apple music store, right-click on any link and you'll get the option to copy it as an http link." Nice.

Colorful alley in the Mission on a sunny Sunday

WSJ: San Francisco 94110 Is Really a Hot Spot, My Wi-Fi Tour Shows

"In the end, I counted about 3,000 wireless networks in my ZIP Code. The 2003 population of 94110 was 75,000, meaning we have one Wi-Fi access point for every 25 people."

Despite all that, I still have to pay to get on at my local (94110), independent coffee shop.

Also, I don't lock down my network, but I don't broadcast, so I'm not helping.

Commencement Address by Bono

"But my point is that the world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape. Now if I were a folksinger I'd immediately launch into 'If I Had a Hammer' right now get you all singing and swaying. But as I say I come from punk rock, so I'd rather have the bloody hammer right here in my fist.

That's what this degree of yours is, a blunt instrument. So go forth and build something with it. Remember what John Adams said about Ben Franklin, 'He does not hesitate at our boldest Measures but rather seems to think us too irresolute.'

Well this is the time for bold measures. This is the country, and you are the generation. Thank you."

His name is Bono and he is a rock star.

Porkchops and Banana Republic

A dispatch.

The Way We Eat Now

"Ancient bodies collide with modern technology to produce a flabby, disease-ridden populace." Excellent summary of the pathetic state of the American diet.

(Reading it made me kinda hungry, though...)

McSweeney's Issue 13

Picked up the new McSweeney's at the pirate store this weekend. It's a gorgeous comics issue, edited by your favorite and mine, Chris Ware. It even has a Jimmy Corrigan-like cover and two bonus comic inserts. Haven't read anything in it, but have reveled in its beauty. Which is good enough for me.

Trick: When the alarm goes off, and you're debating whether to hit snooze again or get up, think instead about not just getting up, but getting up and excercising! Then downgrade to just getting up, and that seems easy.

AD:Tech today

I'm at AD:Tech this afternoon, speaking on a panel about the new social web with Rick Bruner, Heath Row, and Adrian Scott.

Stop by if you're there.

Also: AD:TECHblog

Also (4:50 PM): Mena Trott and David Reis were on the panel. (I didn't mention Mena before because we're cut-throat competitors, and I didn't want to acknowledge her existence. But then I thought better of it when Mena pointed it out during the panel.)

4:54 PM: The above will be one of those things I say ironically but some people won't know that's what I'm doing. That's fun. (I'm glad I don't have to turn on comments for every post.)

BTW (4:59 PM): The panel is over now.