More will be revealed at the upcoming PDC (Professional Developers Conference) and WinHEC (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference), but for now, we know the name of the next version of Windows: Windows 7. The only other hint that Mike Nash drops in his post on the Vista team blog is that the goal for this version is to:

“stay firmly rooted in our aspirations for Windows Vista, while evolving and refining the substantial investments in platform technology in Windows Vista into the next generation of Windows.”

which I interpret as: “It’ll be the Vista we should’ve made.” For their sake, I hope so.

As for the name, it may not be as aspirational or inspirational as “Vista”, but it’s probably a good idea for Microsoft to adopt an “under-promise and over-deliver” strategy.

Here’s the latest computer in the Great Give-Away: a Pentium IV desktop with 19″ monitor:

I picked it up in 2004 at Factory Direct: it’s a refurbished HP whose model number is unknown (Factory Direct likes to remove identifying markings from refurbs). My best guess, after doing some poking around is that it’s a Pavilion a375. Here are its specs:

• Processor: 3.0 Ghz Pentium IV with Hyperthreading
• RAM: 512 MB DDR
• Hard Drive: 120 GB
• Optical Drives: 16x CD/DVD+ reader/writer
• Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800 (128MB)

The monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 955DF, a decent 19″ CRT monitor. It may be big and bulky, but it does a decent job displaying graphics, and it’s free!

The computer’s got some niceties, including these front-panel jacks for audio, FireWire and USB and media card slots:

There’s a brand-new power supply installed in the machine, but in order to accomodate the power requirements of the video card, something had to give. While the 3.5″ floppy drive is functional, it isn’t connected to the power.

Available for Free

That’s right — I’m giving it away this system to someone who really needs it. If you are someone who needs a free computer or know someone who does, tell me the story at accordionguy@gmail.com. I’d prefer it if you were in the Toronto area (just because it makes things easier). I’ll give the computer to the person or organization whom I deem needs it most.

Since getting laid off, I’ve been getting a little less exercise. My bike commute to work, a 14-kilometre (8.7 mile) round trip, is gone. I also haven’t been going to the gym as often, even with the extra free time. I’ve lost five pounds since getting called into my layoff meeting two weeks and two days ago, in spite of the reduced exercise and some pretty big meals, including an anniversary dinner, Wendy’s birthday dinner and the farewell dinner b5 threw earlier this week. I needed to shed that weight anyway; I should make sure not to gain it back once I land a job.

Should you lose your job, your mileage may vary depending on how you respond to stress. I’ve been waking up about an hour earlier than normal to work on my career plans, research the companies who’ve shown an interest in me, and to do a little extra work on some blog entries. I also haven’t felt like eating as much, which comes from feeling twitchy about the situation. If your response to stress is to eat more or drink lots of beer (a.k.a. “liquid bread”), the change in your weight is likely to be the opposite of mine.

I guess the graphic makes it official: Apple will be announcing new notebook computers on Tuesday, October 14th at 10:00 a.m. Pacific (1:00 p.m. Eastern). I guess we’ll find out:

• If the so-called “leaked” photos are the real deal
• If they’re carved out of a block of aluminum
• If the trackpad is also a mini-display
• If there really is a sub-$1000 model
• How much they’ll cost

This should be interesting…

In the hope of triggering some “it always rains just after you wash your car” mojo, I thought I’d post the resume I’m handing out when applying for technical evangelist positions. Enjoy!

“Hey, dude!” said my pal on the phone yesterday. “I’m one of you!”

That was his way of telling me that along with about 1,000 other full-time employees of the well-known auction website for which he worked, he’d been laid off. But rather than calling to have a shoulder to cry on, he’d called to tell me about a plan he’d been working on and to ask me for my opinion. That’s one thing I have to say about a lot of high-tech people: the moment they lose a job, they start hustling.

Enjoy the Gallows Humour

It’s ironic: I’ve actually been busier unemployed than during the last couple of weeks of my employment. As a project manager in charge of projects that were either cancelled, on hiatus or managed by other people, I had precious little to do. As an unemployed job-seeker with a blog of some repute and reach, I’ve been very lucky: potential employers have been calling me, rather than the other way around. My days are pretty full doing legwork, research or interviews.

That doesn’t mean I still don’t enjoy the “loafing” gallows humour about the unemployed, such as this to-do list I found the other day:

One of the first things I did when I emerged from “the meeting” at b5 was to load up Odd Todd’s Laid Off: A Day in the Life, a classic from the last time I was last laid off by a dot-com. It’s still funny after all this time:

Click the image to see Laid Off: A Day in the Life.

And finally, if you have a lot of time to kill, here’s another classic from the era of the dot-com bubble burst: Leisuretown’s Q.A. Confidential, a comic made of ninety pages like the one shown below:

Page 2 from Q.A. Confidential.
Click the image to read the whole comic.

Here’s the publisher’s write-up of the book:

Want to learn about databases without the tedium? With its unique combination of Japanese-style comics and serious educational content, The Manga Guide to Databases is just the book for you.

Princess Ruruna is stressed out. With the king and queen away, she has to manage the Kingdom of Kod’s humongous fruit-selling empire. Overseas departments, scads of inventory, conflicting prices, and so many customers! It’s all such a confusing mess. But a mysterious book and a helpful fairy promise to solve her organizational problems—with the practical magic of databases.

In The Manga Guide to Databases, Tico the fairy teaches the Princess how to simplify her data management. We follow along as they design a relational database, understand the entity-relationship model, perform basic database operations, and delve into more advanced topics. Once the Princess is familiar with transactions and basic SQL statements, she can keep her data timely and accurate for the entire kingdom. Finally, Tico explains ways to make the database more efficient and secure, and they discuss methods for concurrency and replication.

Examples and exercises (with answer keys) help you learn, and an appendix of frequently used SQL statements gives the tools you need to create and maintain full-featured databases.

(Of course, it wouldn’t be a royal kingdom without some drama, so read on to find out who gets the girl—the arrogant prince or the humble servant.)

This EduManga book is a translation of a bestselling series in Japan, co-published with Ohmsha, Ltd., of Tokyo, Japan.

The book will be available on December 1st, just in time to order as a Christmas present for someone who’s into both programming and manga.

The next logical step is to take the ads on the page area surrounding casual games and and move them inside casual games, and it’s now possible with AdSense for Games, which makes it possible to insert AdSense advertising into Flash games. Here’s an example provided by the Inside AdSense blog, which shows gameplay and a “and now, a word from our sponsors” moment featuring an AdSense ad (the ad comes on at the 0:53 mark):

For the time being, your casual game will have to be a hit to qualify: it has to have half a million game plays a day and 80% of its traffic must come from the U.S. and U.K.. As with original recipe AdSense, it’s likely that the “long tail” crowd will eventually be admitted if AdSense for Games takes off.

For more details, see the Google In-Game Advertising page.

The first was taken two Thursdays ago. It’s a photo of the stuff that I brought to the office over time and took home that night:

I know it’s unusual to bring in your own office chair, but ones at the office were sub-par, and I ahd a decent one just sitting in my apartment’s storage room. The desktop computer is one that I haven’t been using much; at the office, I treated it as a big backup hard drive and iTunes machine.

I took the second at the Queen and Richmond Starbucks just a couple of minutes ago. I thought it might give you an idea of what a high-tech job search looks like:

If you’re in my situation — that is, looking for work — make sure that you read Robert Scoble’s article titled So, you need a job? Man, do resumes suck. In the article, he provides two lists:

1. A list of surefire ways to guarantee that your resume will quickly be put into the “crap” pile. This list includes incredibly basic mistakes such letting misspellings slip by, sending only the resume as an email attachment without actually writing anything in the body of the email and applying for positions for which you are clearly either over- or underqualified.
2. A list of surefire ways to stand out from the crowd. This includes having a blog, doing some homework on the person or organization to whom you’re sending the resume and writing not only for humans but for resume-scanning software as well.

Watch Out if You Use Word 2007

Scoble makes a very important point in his “Don’t” list that I’m going to restate because a lot of people make this mistake: Don’t send your resume in .docx format!

The .docx format is the default file format for Word 2007, and prior versions of Word can’t read it unless they have the add-in that can import those files. Since the last really useful new feature in Word — the red lines beneath suspected misspellings and green lines beneath suspected grammatical errors — appeared in Word a couple of versions ago, most people don’t feel the need to keep up with the absolute latest version. If you send out your resume in .docx format, there’s a good chance that the people receiving it can’t read it. If you use Word 2007 to write your resume, use “Save As…” to create the version that you’ll send out and save it as a “Word 97-2003″ document, a.k.a. a .doc file.

Here’s a quick guide to the differences between the file icons:

Click the picture to see the full-size version.
Image courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

I don’t know where my friend Miss Fipi Lele keeps digging up this stuff, but I’m glad she’s still sending it my way!

CARD’s mission is to improve the lives of children and adults with disabilities through therapeutic horse riding programs, which helps with their mobility, communication and social skills, and self-esteem. All riders are assessed to ensure the program will benefit them, and to ensure they are placed appropriately in a hippotherapy, psycho-education, therapeutic riding or horsemanship class. Some of their riders who have progressed through the ranks and competed internationally at the Paralympic games and in other ParaEquestrian events.

CARD is 100% self-funded. They rely on grants, donations, sponsorship and fundraising efforts and don’t get any government support. They need to update their office equipment and are looking for donors and donations; they’re currently running on 8 year old iMacs. Of all the people who emailed me, CARD sounded like the people who needed the PowerBook the most, so it’s theirs.

I’ve got another machine to give away, so watch this space!

Last time, I gave away a Mac clone from the ’90s. This time, I’m giving away this machine: a 2003-era 12″ PowerBook G4:

Some specs:

• 867 Mhz PowerPC G4 processor
• 640K RAM (the maximum)
• 1024 * 768 screen resolution
• 40 GB hard drive
• “Combodrive” (Reads and burns CD-ROMs, reads DVDs)
• AirPort Extreme card

Here’s a peek at the ports on its left side:

The right side has just the CD/DVD slot:

And yes, it can be yours…FREE!

How Can You Get This Machine?

Alas, you can’t anymore; it’s been given away.

• b5media paid bloggers based on pageview statistics drawn from AWStats, which produces its results by analyzing the the server log files.
• In b5’s experience, AWStats reported pageview counts that were significantly inflated — I’m talking numbers that were sometimes two-thirds higher than reality — and this was confirmed when AWStats’ results were compared with those reported by SiteMeter, a package we believe is far more accurate.
• b5 recently made the switch to Omniture’s web analytics package, which delivers more accurate pageview statistics and can do the kinds of detailed analysis that the company needs.
• As a trusted third party, Omniture provides results that can be trusted by:
  • The bloggers. Unlike AWStats, which is run by b5 and based on data on b5’s servers, Omniture’s data is collected and processes by a neutral third party with a solid industry reputation.
  • Advertisers. Just as TV ad buyers look at ratings and newspaper and magazine ad buyers look at circulation, blog advertisers look at pageview stats, and they need to be able to trust the numbers we provide them.
  • b5’s investors. They use the size of the readership as a metric for the company’s performance, and like advertisers, they need to be able to trust the stats.

Simply put, up till now, b5 has been paying bloggers based on inaccurate, inflated pageview counts. If you’re a b5 blogger and your pay drops as a result of the switch to Omniture, you’re not getting ripped off; it just means that the system no longer makes errors in your favour. It was a nice ride, but it had to end sometime.

Even under the new pay structure, blogging under the b5 umbrella is a pretty sweet deal. A guaranteed minimum CPM of $4? That’s awesome compared to the alternatives out there. Consider my personal blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, which has been averaging about 200,000 pageviews a month (outperforming most of b5’s blogs) and has had over 2 million pageviews this year according to StatCounter. I do a big happy dance when my CPM makes that rare climb over $1.10. $4? Sign me up!

To summarize, I believe that b5media’s new pay system for bloggers is both the right thing for the company and fair to its bloggers. I stand behind CEO Jeremy Wright and the rest of the b5 team in their decision.

Recommended Reading

For more details, I recommend you read Jeremy Wright’s blog post in response to the TechCrunch story.

A number of tech blogs have already covered the news: Google Blog Search now has a meme-tracking feature similar to Techmeme’s. For those of you not familiar with Techmeme, take a look at the screenshot below:

Techmeme takes blog posts from top tech blogs and features them on the site. Each featured posts appears as a headline followed by a short blurb; the headline links to the featured post. Posts on other blogs that link to the featured post are listed below the featured post; these posts can “graduate” to featured posts if other tech blogs start linking to them. Featured posts that get a lot of links “bubble up” to the top of the page.

Techmeme’s arrangement makes it easy for readers to track the top stories in the tech world and follow the blogospheric conversation about a specific story as blogger write about it, all while minimizing the link chasing you have to do to follow a meme. If tech isn’t your thing, there are a handful of sites built on the same engine, but focusing on different topics:

• Ballbug for Major League Baseball
• memeorandum for politics
• WeSmirch for celebrity news and gossip

Google Blog Search has been relaunched with meme tracking — if you visit its main page now, it should give you a strong feeling of Techmeme deja vu. Here’s a screenshot:

Google Blog Search does Techmeme-ish meme tracking of blogs along 11 categories:

• Business
• Entertainment
• Movies
• Politics
• Science
• Sports
• Technology
• Television
• US
• Video Games
• World

How to Put Both to Work for Your Blog

A number of the posts written about Google Blog Search’s new Techmeme-like functionality have asked the question “Is Google Blog Search a Techmeme killer?” If you’re Techmeme creator Gabe Rivera, Google or someone who makes money off either, it’s an important question.

However, if like most of us, you’re not one of those, the real question is “How can I put both to work to get more people to read my blog?”

The answer is simple, and it’s an idea I had when I first launched Global Nerdy. Since that thought-stealing rat-bastard Jason Calacanis has secret Mahalo-powered mind-reading technology and put forth the same idea at the Blog Business Summit back in 2006, the world thinks he came up with it.

It’s a simple five-step plan originally for using Techmeme; the same trick should work with Google Blog Search:

1. Go to Techmeme and Google Blog Search.
2. Blog something intelligent about their topmost stories.
3. Link to and mention all the people who have said something intelligent.
4. Repeat for 30 days.
5. Go to a couple of conferences a month.

You can skip the conferences step if it’s too rich for your blood; the first four steps, which I haven’t been following as often as I should — have boosted this blog’s readership from the hundreds to the thousands.

Special Message to That Rat-Bastard Thought-Stealing (but probably nice guy to work for) Jason Calacanis:

I’m looking for work. Do you need an accordion-playing tech evangelist?

On the off-chance you hadn’t yet heard, Apple has finally dropped its much-reviled NDA for iPhone developers for released software. It was so restrictive that developers were forbidden from discussing or writing documentation on iPhone development, even with or for other iPhone developers.

In the announcement on Apple Developer Connection, they explain why they put developers under the excessively-restrictive NDA:

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

This sort of behaviour harkens back to the 1990s, when Apple behaved as if all third-party developers who weren’t Adobe existed on a spectrum ranging from “unwanted houseguest” to “the enemy”. Speaking as a guy with a strong technical evangelist background (note to employers: hint, hint!), this is not the way you foster developer love nor build a developer community.

Expect iPhone development tutorials and tips to start popping up all over the web and for the Pragmatic Programmers’ book iPhone SDK Development to finally see the light of day.

My sudden surplus of free time has given me some time to do some thing I’d been meaning to do but never got around to doing. One of those things is doing a little decluttering, and as a result, I have a number of computers that I don’t need anymore.

Rather than put them up for sale, I’ve decided to give the computers away to people who need them. I could put them up for sale on eBay or Craigslist, but I’ve decided to use this opportunity to do a good deed and put some goodwill out there. Some of these machines might be a bit old for everyday use and are probably of interest to collectors, but giving you an old computer makes your day better and frees up my space, that’s a good thing.

The First Free Machine

This is an oldie, but if you pine for the days of pre-Return-of-Jobs Apple, you’ll love this machine. It’s a Umax C600/240 PowerMac clone from about a dozen years ago. Some of its specs:

• 240Mhz PowerPC 603e processor
• 96 MB Ram
• 2GB hard drive
• Two video cards — the standard Mac one from that era, plus an ATI card. You can dual-monitor this baby!
• Ethernet card

It comes with an AppleVision 17″ CRT monitor, SuperMac ADB keyboard and Apple ADB mouse. It’s got a whole bunch of old Mac software too.

How Do You Get This Machine? [Update]

You can’t anymore — it’s been claimed!

How About the Other Machines?

I’ve got an appointment right now, so I’ll have to write about them later. Watch this space!

Because I was laid off and not fired from my former place of employment, they’re taking me out for a farewell dinner on Tuesday night. It’s a nice gesture on their part, and I appreciate it greatly.

I’m allowed to choose the restaurant, and I must let them know my choice by Monday, October 6th. The problem is that I’ve just got too much on the brain and need help picking a place. If you’ve got suggestions, I’d like to hear them!

Some parameters:

• It should be within easy walking/transit travel of Queen and Spadina (that’s where the office is)
• My guess is that there will be about 10 people total.
• There will be drinking. A lot of it. At least 2 two rounds of “Irish Car Bombs”, too.
• It can’t be terribly expensive (which means that Nota Bene is off the list).
• The usual office after-work hangouts are Wayne Gretzky’s and Jack Astor’s. While perfectly serviceable, I’m looking for alternatives.
• The Pickle Barrel is not eligible.

Technology, media and pop culture writer Douglas Rushkoff, who’s got a guest writing slot at the uber-blog Boing Boing, points to an essay titled Riding Out the Credit Collapse. Published in the spring 2008 edition of Arthur magazine, it:

• Provides a layperson-friendly, non-drowsy explanation of how the credit crisis came about
• Suggests the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself and your interests during the credit crisis (and in fact, any crisis, including being laid off during a credit crisis)

Don’t let the article’s apparent length scare you off — read it! Yes, it’s ten screens, but it’s set in a narrow column. If you’re still skittish about reading that much, shame on you, and here’s the part on which I want to focus:

Whatever the case, the best thing you can do to protect yourself and your interests is to make friends. The more we are willing to do for each other on our own terms and for compensation that doesn’t necessarily involve the until-recently-almighty dollar, the less vulnerable we are to the movements of markets that, quite frankly, have nothing to do with us.

If you’re sourcing your garlic from your neighbor over the hill instead of the Big Ag conglomerate over the ocean, then shifts in the exchange rate won’t matter much. If you’re using a local currency to pay your mechanic to adjust your brakes, or your chiropractor to adjust your back, then a global liquidity crisis won’t affect your ability to pay for either. If you move to a place because you’re looking for smart people instead of a smart real estate investment, you’re less likely to be suckered by high costs of a “hot” city or neighborhood, and more likely to find the kinds of people willing to serve as a social network, if for no other reason than they’re less busy servicing their mortgages.

I think Rushkoff’s got the right idea, and I’d like to torque it a little further. Forget for a moment the more fanciful ideas of printing your own “Canadian Tire Money”; when he says “local currency”, I want you think of these things:

• Reputation,
• Goodwill,
• and most importantly, Luck.

Among the many things that I’m churning in my brain right now — along with updating the resume, finding a place to put all the stuff that I used to keep at the office and getting that eye appointment with Dr. Heeney before my work-provided insurance coverage expires — is real-world testing an idea and writing about it here. That idea rests on two principles, namely:

1. Having friends and being friendly makes you lucky. I’ve always suspected it, and Marc Myers wrote a book on the topic.
2. I’d rather be lucky than smart. It’s the mantra of my all-time favourite financial planner, whom I shall refer to as “P. Kizzy”. If I get even a tenth of P. Kizzy’s business acumen, I will be a very happy man.

Watch this space, ’cause I’m going to expand on those ideas!