Remember Meetup.com? Do people still use that? I’ve been on the watch for a few Austin meetups that people have been showing interest in but no one taking the initiative to be an organizer. Everyone probably has the same thoughts I do, which is “Yeah, like I need something else to in charge of.” Well someone finally is organizing a web design meetup group called AustinMMUG - Web Design & Developer Group. I’ve joined and look forward to others joining and attending.

An electric car that can beat a Ferrari 360 Spider and a Porsche Carrera GT.  What’s sad is that this is what the world may need to get everyone over to electric.  Speed talks, not helping the environment.  Of course it will take lots of time to get the $100,000 estimated price down, but at least it’s a start and will maybe get the other car manufacturers on the ball and start making hybrids and electrics more accessible to the average driver.  Would there really be a need for an oil war if we all had electric cars?  A coworker just had a great idea to afford one of these….Race for pinks to make the payments. 

I walked around the expo floor at WCIT several times and one time early in the day I spotted the AIT booth and noticed they had an XBOX360 playing Need for Speed Most Wanted. I wanted to play but there were two Austin Police Department Officers hogging the box. The one on the right was playing and the one on the left was having trouble finding the correct button for accelleration. I said to them “You guys should be good at this. Don’t you guys train for high speed pursuits?” They kinda laughed it off. Not too often you get to give a cop a hard time and not get arrested for it.  I don’t think they knew I took a few pictures with my phone.

I started invidkllr.com before blogging was even a word and originally it wasn’t a blog site, it was just an info site about me for whatever reason. I wanted a site and I got one. Goodbye geocities. When I started blogging a few years ago, I would only post an enty maybe once every week or two and at times I would forget and neglect the site and two months later I would still have the same old post on there. One of the best things that I have learned attending SXSW Interactive was to POST OFTEN. SXSW is the time when I get motivated to do something with my site and I usually try to keep an eye on my webstats before and after SXSW. I communicate my site during that time with a lot of people and hits usually go up for a week or two after and then gradually die down. I just ran a stats report today to find out where the site hits stood and was surprised to see a rather large and steady increase in hits these past few months. Now my hit count may not compare to yours but I have to say I feel a little proud that this many people are hitting my site on a daily basis. Now go add my RSS feed into your Google Reader and tell your friends! and thanks for the hits!

P.S.  I still like comments and email feedback. 

Intel’s CEO, Paul Otellini, spoke earlier and kicked ass.  He annouced a pretty cool little laptop with no harddrive, but flash memory, specifically designed for kids in school.  So they can bang it around and not damage any moving parts that a normal laptop has.  I got my hands on the prototype on the expo floor and it was impressive.  The screen was a little small but it seemed durable enough for a child to use.  He expressed that we need to get laptops in the schools so we can educate our children using technology so that they can build a better world with future technologies.  The other product that is also a prototype was a tablet type pc to be used in hospitals that guage vital stats using bluetooth and the wireless connects to the network where everything can be monitored and reported to doctors and nurses and family.  Camera built right in and file would store digital pics of xrays.  RFID used to identify patient with file by the tablet.  It’s a system that would help illiminate mistakes and ensure speed and accuracy when dealing with patient’s data.  It’s time for hospitals to get rid of this paper mess and get start operating in the same way that most successful business operate.

It was great to hear Principles of schools in foreign countries telling these corporate tech lords that it is their duty and responsibility to the world to get the technology to the kids and in the schools all over the world and to hear a call to the same tech lords to progress healthcare in a technological way that will save more lives.

Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft, just walked off stage after his keynote speach on technology reaching the entire globe and getting unconnected people connected to the technology and the internet. Pretty interesting but there wasn’t really anything said that was groundbreaking or very inspiring. We all know that technology needs to stretch to the out of reach areas and be more previlant in the health care industry. He did mention that the CTO of Microsoft just got back from a week tour of China in the small villages to see how they could impact their way of life. They are definently all about making Microsoft way the only way to live and work. Kinda scary. CEO of Intel is talking now and just took a shot at AMD and their “yesterday’s technology” not being the way to move ahead in the outreach of technology.

On a more serious note, I finally got to ride on a Segway on the exposition floor. They have a track going around the entire trade floor. It took about a minute or two to get my bearing and center of gravity, but once I did I was hooked and wanting one. I originally thought you turned by leaning a little but in fact on the left handle there is a shifter that is twisted for turning. It was pretty fun. Local Austin company, Gliding Revolution, provided the demo and offer  for about $60 which lasts about 2.5 hours. I already know a lot about Austin but I’d love to take the tour just to ride around town on one of these for a while. IT will change the way we live! (remember that one?)

So Microsoft’s new idea in battling Google is to aquire Yahoo. So will that mean that my MSN account with merge with my Yahoo account? I remember using DSL from SBC and when they joined with Yahoo. I thought it was kind of annoying. Maybe it worked well enough for a different market but not for me. If Microsoft takes Yahoo then that is one less search company in the search competition. Once again Microsoft is trying to eliminate the competition with money rather than a quality product. Currently I still use my Yahoo email, but not very much anymore. Too much spam and the format is old and more difficult to use now. The email battle used to be for space. When Gmail opened up it was an amazing 1GB and the other companies had to follow their lead. Now everyone offers plenty of email storage and it’s no longer a need, it’s expected. So that brings the next factor which is ease of use and how you work with the interface. Most of you know that I have been Googlefied. Google’s interface with combining an in-browser email, calendar, chat, and customizable homepage with the ability to create your own plugins is amazing and so easy to use. No noise from flashy graphics and images and ads and junk all over the page. I think even if Microsoft and Yahoo do join in, I expect more people may get turned off by that than embrace it. Just thinking about it makes me want to email all of my yahoo contacts and inform them that they will now be able to reach me on Gmail. Shoot me an email if you need a Gmail invite, I only have about 1,000 left.