I upgraded to Firefox 3.0 recently and Google Maps stopped working soon after. Most of the page would load but the map portion would stay blank. I went through all the usual steps (clear cache, nuke cookie, check about:config settings) with no dice until I started to disable Add-on Extensions (Tools->Add-ons->Extensions). By semi-pseudo-scientific process of elimination I think I fingered the Skype extension for Firefox as the problem. Give it a try if you have the same problem. Hope it helps.
August 25th, 2008
Last July 4th weekend (about eight weeks ago) I went to Tijuana with my cousin Nate to grab a bite at one of my favorite restaurants. Sadly, no donkeys or tequila were harmed in the breaking of my shoulder. Don’t take this as a TJ-bashing story. Although there is a narco-twist, I lived in Mexico for years without anything remotely bad happening. I do hope to provide a glimpse of what’s ahead for other folks that have similar injuries. If you’ve just had a similar injury, get ready for a life changing event (at least for the next few months) and you’ll find there’s not much on the interwebs about it.
I was walking back to the border with Nate and came to one of the huge TJ roundabouts. I didn’t see any cars coming and started to cross. About a 1/3 of the way in I heard an engine rev, looked up and saw a narco looking 4×4 accelerating towards me and jerking his wheel back and forth. Seeing that this is a fight I would lose, I turned back to the curb, promptly slipped on something and went down on my outstretched right hand. Immediately, I knew that I had blown the shoulder - those of you that have been in shock know what’s it’s like to be beyond pain. Somehow I rolled to the side of the road, didn’t get run over and made a sling out of my jacket. Doctors told me a few times after that I must have hit the arm with massive energy to cause that level of damage. So, after being offerred aspirin by at least ten friendly Mexicans and a few introductions to brothers-in-law that are good with bones I made it back to the border and on to a US emergency room. That’s where the real fun started.
Bone doctors don’t seem to hang around in emergency rooms waiting for patients, particularly at midnight on Saturdays. So, they have to call them in. If you’ve got a badly broken shoulder waiting is pure agony. In my case it took a few hours for the orthopedic intern to show up. His key decision was whether to operate right away or have me see an orthopedist on Monday. He ordered up a set of x-rays to see if the shoulder was displaced and the position of the bone. His read was that I had a comminuted three or four-part fracture in the ball of the shoulder with a proximal fracture of the humerus. The humerus is the long bone that goes from the shoulder ball/socket down to the elbow. Comminuted means the bone is in multiple pieces and proximal means that the the ball part of the humerus is broken off from the forearm part at the neck.
So here’s what they saw when they took x-rays:
Since the shoulder wasn’t dislocated and the break was bad but not too out of place, an emergency operation wasn’t needed and he sent me home and told me to see my orthopedist on Monday. He also gave me a cheapie sling with instructions to immobilize the shoulder. By this time, the entire arm from the shoulder blade down to my elbow was swollen and painful. He also gave me some heavy-duty painkillers which I never took.
The next few days waiting to see my orthopedist I didn’t do much and discovered quickly a few aids to proximal fracture living:
-Hygiene: Showering was really painful so I didn’t take one for a week (yuck). Changing shirts is painful too so I wore the same shirt for a few days. When it was too nasty for me I just cut it off and switched to a XL button-up rather than moving the shoulder.
-Sleeping Nest: Pillows are really helpful to supporting a somewhat upright position for sleeping and supporting the broken shoulder arm. I never got less than six hours of sleep during the first month.
-Ice: I got a few wrap around the shoulder icepacks. They killed the pain enough that I got to avoid being stoned on painkillers (ignore if this is a beni!).
-Wardrobe: Nothing is more painful than getting into a pullover long-sleeve shirt. I got a new wardrobe (you may have these types of clothes but I didn’t) of loose shorts, button-up short-sleeve shirts and loose socks. I got a few XL shirts as well that I could wear on top of the sling because initially I didn’t want to move the shoulder socket at all. Changing what I wore seems simple but it was one of the largest pain/hassle reducers.
-Diet: I have NO scientific basis for this part but it seemed to work for me and I healed much more quickly than expected. I drank loads of water, stopped anything with caffeine or alcohol and went on a high-protein high-vitamin diet. All of the doctors I saw told me that anything I did diet-wise was meaningless but I really do think it helped. At the very least I lost weight rather than gained during the low-activity period.
So, I went to see orthopedic surgeons on Monday and Tuesday (2 and 3 days post) and heard the same thing from both. Essentially, I had the best type of the worst fracture possible. The proximal fracture with multiple pieces is nasty because the shoulder is a tough healer with lots of possible complications. On the positive side, the pieces were mostly in the right area. Both doctors said that they could operate and might have to replace the shoulder, but if they watched it there was a 50% chance that the shoulder would not fall apart (the pieces getting less together) and it would heal on its own. Even if it did not fall apart, there was also a smaller chance of non-union where the peices don’t heal together with a good fit. They could only do pin/plate/etc. surgery for a few weeks so I would come back every week for x-rays to see if the bones had shifted in a nasty way. My expectations were set that any way it goes it would be a 1-2 year recovery including physical therapy.
So I settled in for a wait and made a few more lifestyle changes:
-Dual-Sling Strategy: The orthopod gave me a nifty Ultrasling to replace my cheap-o-sling. As a note, make sure you take time at the office to learn how to adjust the sling. I found pretty quickly that each sling has its use. The Ultrasling is great at stabilization so I used it most of the time while sleeping or walking
around. I did need (desperately) to take a shower though and needed a waterproof, fast-drying and lightweight sling for the task. The lighter nylon cheapie sling they gave me at the emergency room was perfect for stabilizing my arm during a shower. Key skills here is switching between the slings.
This post is in progress - more to come!
August 24th, 2008
YouTube accounts for most of my I’ve-gotta-take-a-quick-brain-refresher breaks. It’s the clearl winner for this round of socially generated video content and is stomping the competition nicely. I’ve been surprised though by the lack of extensions. Think Google Maps type mash-ups for video content. Using ‘Code’ - embedded video windows via HTML in MySpace-speak - is pretty common. Applications built on YouTube aren’t. In fact, two of the reference apps that YouTube lists on their dev site don’t seem to be working.
I think the next round of video winners will come out of whoever delivers the best mobile integrated experience, the best sharing tools and the most useful, coolest enahncement tools.
So on the last point, I really dig TubeCH that I found on mixi through the mixi YouTube Community. It was developed on the YouTube Developer APIs and provides a slick interface for searching, organizing and viewing YouTube content.
There’s a screen-shot below - check it out if you’re a YouTube fan with a desire to mainline user-gen.
June 18th, 2006
Google entered the feed reader market with Google Reader a few days ago. Contrary to the mostly negative evals of it, I think it’s a credible effort. Import and export of feed lists via OPML worked nicely. I’ve seen the same issues as others related to speed and refresh, but at the end of the day I’m impressed with search integration and smooth access to text and audio content through a web interface.
My issue is relevance. Accessing content through a FeedReader seem close to the barebones usage model of Usenet Readers from way back. There’s so much more that I do with content.
In Web 2.0 content flows in ways that are unique to an open standards-based syndication model. Applications arise when photos of birds meet mapping meet my GPS mapper device. Or podcasts meet concert schedules meet my Outlook calendar.
So here are a few ideas off the top of my head that would make Google Reader more Web 2.0-ey:
-Help me to stack up podcasts/videocasts. Make it easy to transfer them to my MP3 player. Better yet enable me to schedule automatic transfer to my player.
-Let me build groups with friends to recommend/comment on content.
-Mine (anonymous) user data to let me know what people like me like.
Of course, #1 is Odeo, #2 is MySpace and #3…isn’t around much yet. They all have considerably more value to me than reading feeds and are only oferred in basic form by Google.
I want to see applications that go beyond search to make me a Google member rather than just a search and API user. Bring em on.
November 8th, 2005
I received a Flock .5pre upgrade a few minutes ago. I’ve been meaning to try this out for a few weeks. Flock is aiming to be a social software that replaces browsing as the way most of us interact with Internet content. Setup was smooth and fit/finish is good for pre-release software, although the import function took 5 minutes to complete and HTML support of the WYSIWYG editor is slightly funky.
I entered the kane.org WordPress blog info in Flock and am now posting directly from Flock. So far the browser interface makes sense and it’s nice to have a one-click interface to post to my blog. Not to be too harsh on pre-release software, I do miss some of the advanced features that Blogger and Wordpress Admin have.
It does seem to me that the Flock folks have set a high bar by replacing my browser, rather than producing a plug-in to IE, Safari and Firefox. I look forward to seeing the features, plug-ins and API reach-outs to services like flickr that would increase the value of the total package.
November 8th, 2005
UPDATE NOTE: Not surprisingly, more than one group is working on the concept I described. One of the vCard extensions that I received an email about is Hcard.
Between calls today, I thought about how personal information is still sliced and diced into multiple IM systems, multiple personal pages and difused in other ways. Places like MySpace are an improvement over the narrowly focussed kane.org for sharing information of the personal type with others. However, they are still largely a closed system.
These community and social technology enablers take the first stage of open syndication and content technologies to the next level, but don’t provide an equivalent to RSS to ‘publish’ personal information. I’m thinking of a network friendly, expanded vCard or Plaxo-type technology that lives in the world of open standards and technologies. A single authoritative, but syndicated/published source of the info would solve the issues I have with both the vCard (not universal or auto-updating) and Plaxo (it has to poll each contact with email).
There are good reasons for some folks not to want anyone else to have access to their phone number or email address, but the same restrictions may not apply to bands you like or technologies you think are cool. Some of the inevitable concerns about control over information could be addressed with a federated directory approach.
How about XMLRPC-type access so I can ping the place your personal info lives (if you authorize me) and grab updates to your phone number, favorite bands, blog location, etc.?
Wouldn’t it be great if your Outlook, cell phone or other address book could constantly update your contacts?
And last, wouldn’t it be great if these capabilities could be integrated into the relevant web services that you use?
November 8th, 2005
With sharing and video both rocket-hot right now, there are several players using P2P technology and sharing communities to deliver user-generated and vertical video content. The advantage is clear for anything that is heavier than standard text blog and picture community fare.
veoh and redswoosh are good examples of the next generation of content distribution networks that specialize in user-generated or licensed vertical content. The value proposition though will be more complicated than in the all-content-is-free part of the P2P world.
Companies like veoh have launched integrated gnutella looking apps that make your computer a node in a content network for non-paid video content (no Harry Potter). Like other P2P software, you both consume from and serve to other users.
As broader plays, back-end folks like Red Swoosh have commercialized BitTorrent technology and are working to build a ubiquitous network for content distributors.
Whatever you think of them, the value to a user of joining DC++, bittorrent and gnutella networks is clear. Is the value still there with these more vertical or content limited applications?
Taking the veoh example, I like it a lot but don’t see enough value yet to give veoh much use of my computer in exchange for the level of video content and storage available. There are also other options I use to store and stream my home-made video from someone else’s server (putfile, etc.) for free.
RedSwoosh is neat also, but I want to understand more about how much of my bandwidth and processor I’m giving up. Questions on whether RedSwoosh is malicious or not show that the confusion is widespread. If I’m going to download Red Swoosh in order to watch a single video on a website, roughly how much future bandwidth and how many future machine cycles am I giving up? Of course, if I can only get content (such as game demos) by joining redswoosh’s sharing community I have a compelling reason to join and drive the ubiquity that would make it worth keeping redswoosh on my machine.
As with other disruptive technologies, I’m sure that these solutions will start out with the least monetizable content where the cost saving vs. higher-quality central bandwidth is present. Bandwidth is pretty cheap so we’re talking some pretty un-monetizable content like my videos.
November 8th, 2005
Digital music lawsuits in China have reached an turn with a round of rulings in favor of content owners against Chinese site operators.
Until recently, most of the Chinese portals (such as google invested baidu.com) had free MP3 download sections for any song you’d want through structured links to content that was hosted elsewhere. From the user point of view, though, it usually appeared that you could search and download the content directly from the portal. Similar services exist for movies.
When I was there in August, I made a point of inflicting my Chinese on folks wearing MP3 players to ask how and where they got their content. In addition to the bittorrent and gnutella type clients popular elsewhere, many said they use the portal search engines to download and transfer whatever free music they wanted. Many were aware that the portal option might be going away after leading portal netease removed it’s search in mid-August.
It’s interesting that offline media like DVD’s are still available for 8 Yuan (about US$1) on the street. Will the story be different with media over the Internet?
November 8th, 2005
I’ve been traveling this week and spent the 2nd half of the week at the CTIA Entertainment show.
As yet another sign that wireless data/apps are hot again, I had the opportunity to reconnect with quite a few old friends and colleagues that I usually see at the beginning of a technology growth spurt. The device, technology and carrier enablers seem to be finally coming together.
Here are three general themes that I found interesting:
-Content Specific Applications vs. Broad Applications
It reminded me of the early days of digital music, where each brand attempted to build a vertical distribution channel online that mirrored their offline assets. Most of these are gone - only the strongest and broadest brands like CNN or ESPN remain. The wireless content aggregators/publishers are supporting the rush to build the XNN news channel or the X Records Video channel. Others like Qualcomm’s MediFLO, Real and MobiTV (500,000 subscribers) are building applications that a wide swath of horizontal content (like your cable TV). There’s always room for niche content, but my money is on the horizontal players that are application-based to dominate.
-Branded Content vs. User Generated Content
Branded content was everywhere, user generated content almost nowhere. There were at least 5 major and 10 want-to-be content aggregators/publishers. These companies appear to gauge their success on how many vertical brand services/channels they can get on deck or in carrier promotion. I’m sure there’s a role for branded content, but you only have to look at the myspace.com, blogger or flickr too see that wireless’ key 14-20 demographic want to create and distribute THEIR OWN content as well. With every phone a still and video camera, I see a bright future for application developers that empower them.
-CDMA Open Content Distribution vs. Closed Environments (Decks)
I saw many interesting 3G applications that I would tack on $3 to my carrier bills in a second (Verizon or Sprint in my case) that are complete, ready-to-deploy, but aren’t available on deck. In the CDMA world, this means that I can’t download the code into my phone because it’s not approved. I’d like to see the carriers and application developers making my money sooner than later. The model should become more open (in access to billing and provisioning at the least) to allow non-deck applications to be downloaded and used. The market is simply better at picking the next new application than any content manager - no matter how smart. Judging by European and Asian consumption, other wireless users should feel the same.
November 8th, 2005
Prepaid apparently is growing much more quickly than contracted wireless service, as this excellent writeup describes. The US, however, is notable along with Korea and Japan for being an island of contracted wireless users.
Chinese, Indian and Russian network operators (which have 75%+ of their markets in prepaid) are going to be making tough capex decisions until per-capita income increases if Patrick Zerbib’s argument is correct:
Wireless firms with mostly prepaid customers aren’t in a hurry to upgrade to 3G. That’s because most prepaid subscribers can’t afford pricey phones that access the Internet.
This raises lots of questions in my mind on the flip side related to the relationship b/w contracts and application adoption, driving application use with phone subsidies and offering mobile applications (particularly ones currently sold as monthly subscription) to prepaid users. Fun times to be a carrier marketer - in the US at least.
November 8th, 2005
I was sifting through server logs as part of an video logging experiment and saw traffic from the excellent Blog at Broadband Blog. A quick visit to his blog showed that it commented on my creatively titled post I Want More Bandwidth.
November 8th, 2005
For the first time in years, I actually want more bandwidth at home.
Applications drive bandwidth usage in the wired world and I’ve been really getting into video lately.
Digital music was a key push for folks to get DSL and Cable Modems a few years ago and my 1.5-3 Mb/s data line has been right sized to a Type A personality and transferring audio encoded at 1 M/minute. Audio was my most bandwidth intensive application, so it has worked out and I haven’t complained about not having enough bandwidth for at least 3 years. When I had more bandwidth like a $25 100 Mb/S link in Japan (4 years ago) or fiber more recently in China, I didn’t use the extra headroom.
However, the last few weeks, I’ve been downloading and uploading all kinds of video - mostly user-generated content - and getting flashbacks to managing MP3s over dial-up. It just takes too long.
Looking around though, there aren’t any higher bw consumer-priced options in my area. I don’t live in a Verizon phone territory so Fios is out of the question, my cable company maxes out at 3 Mb/s and Verizon’s very cool BroadbandAccess EV-DO wireless has averaged ~450kbp/s for me. WiMAX wireless data networks are supposedly on the way, but I can’t buy any yet as a home consumer.
I’ll take what I can get and enjoy it for now, but I’m ripe for an upgrade.
November 8th, 2005
Blog Day One
Continue Reading November 8th, 2005
