cycling

Censors not able to keep up with NBC's online Olympics coverage

I am sure that you were fearing censorship at these Beijing Olympics.

No, not censorship by the Chinese.

Censorship by those folks at NBC who would prefer you to watch what they want you to watch and, most specifically, when they want you to watch it.

Well, here I am live on a Friday night, freely watching NBCOlympics.com, and witnessing the quite glorious sight of a Chinese cyclist trying to mend his bike.

It looks to me as if his back wheel has suffered a case of the bends.

Looking beneath the screen, I see that his name is … Read more

The 404 130: Where Justin dances like a Muppet

Fridays are always the craziest days at the 404--hopefully you saw today's preshow where Justin danced his little Muppet heart out to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." If you missed it, you can still check out the video below. We have the pleasure of speaking to the great Lou Bakalar today over the phone; he gives us his take on cutting edge tech and we pick his brain about the dangers of driving a taxi in the city. The story rundown is equally zany, filled with strip clubs, celebrity death predictions, vegetable oil automobiles, and of … Read more

Adobe embeds open-source Alfresco in its LiveCycle Enterprise Suite

Adobe and Alfresco announced a significant partnership today to embed Alfresco's content management software into Adobe's LiveCycle Enterprise Suite. The inclusion of Alfresco enriches the Adobe LiveCycle experience, as Adobe's Brian Wick notes:

For example, if a user is filling out a loan package, the application would go into the repository to package together other content related to the process.

"It's much easier, much quicker for our customers to build LiveCycle apps with the content services piece built in," Wick said.

I'm biased, but I see this as one more step to facilitating content as the center of the web/software experience. As Adobe customers like the State of Louisiana are suggesting, it makes it easy to link content to a process or application. It has wide applicability to governments, healthcare organizations, and other enterprises that need to wrap business processes around content.

It's also a great addition to Adobe's previously reported work with Alfresco, the Adobe Share product that integrates Alfresco.

Adobe notes that Alfresco was a clear choice:… Read more

Stayin' alive: the iPhone on the 7-Day 545-mile AIDS LifeCycle 7 Ride

This year many riders in the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the LA Gay and Lesbian Center's annual 7-day AIDS LifeCycle bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles were toting iPhones - tucked away in their spandex or in their Bento boxes on their bikes.

The iPhone was the mose commonly spotted PDA, but man riders had Blackberry devices too. In any case, having a PDA was a great way to keep up with news and to send out updates about our trek's progress. Each day the Ride featured 2500+ riders cycling more than 70-100-plus mile routes. … Read more

Is the PC upgrade cycle dead?

A somewhat predictable PC upgrade cycle was a welcome fact of life back in the '80s and '90s, but it might be a thing of the past.

Or it might not. Analysts are debating it, and we will find out what they conclude next year.

Here's the brief history. In those long-ago days, PC manufacturers--and hence software developers, chipmakers, and computer dealers--would see a spike in demand every three to four years. Microsoft and Intel would come out with major refreshes of their product lines roughly at that cadence. The whole system of steady upgrade cycles culminated with the … Read more

Top ten things to do in a recession

Life has its ups and downs, the economy is cyclical (especially technology's boom and bust cycles), business is feast or famine, what goes around comes around. The older you get, the more you realize that everything about life is a roller-coaster.

This week began with a global market sell-off over fears of an economic recession hitting America. For the record, I don't agree that we're heading for recession. On the other hand, it's not reasonable to believe in a perpetual bull market. That's just not the way it is. What goes up must come down. Maybe not all the way down, but somewhat.

According to Wikipedia (so it must be right), the macroeconomic definition of recession is declining gross domestic product (GDP) for two successive quarters. But these days, the term recession is associated more with declining economic factors, like corporate earnings and employment, for at least a few months.… Read more

Gartner underhypes open source

I'm not sure who Gartner talks to when it puts together its famous "Hype Cycle" reports, but I'm finding it hard to believe that it talks with enterprises. I was recently reading through its "Hype Cycle for Open-Source Software, 2007" report, and was astounded to find out that I've been tricked by paying customers into believing that they were, well, paying.

To wit, Gartner suggests that we're years away from enterprise adoption of the following open-source software categories:

Content management (5-10 years); Enterprise Service Bus (5-10 years); J2EE Application Servers (2-5 years); and IP Telephony (2-5 years).

Does "mainstream" mean that everyone has already bought it? Or does it mean that a wide cross-section of the market is adopting it, and not merely the proverbial "early adopters"?

If the latter, I heartily disagree with Gartner.… Read more

Slow innovation -- long wow?

The Putting People First blog by Experientia has pointed me toward the excellent essay "The Long Wow" by Adaptive Path's Brandon Schauer. Schauer outlines a vision of creating lasting customer loyalty and brand value that runs counter to the fixation on quick wins and instant gratification, which many companies, under the pressure of shorter product life cycles and CMO tenures, seem to pursue these days. He defines "The Long Wow" as "a means to achieving long-term customer loyalty through systematically impressing your customers again and again."

This goes far beyond adding new features … Read more

Cycling bib has built-in MP3 player

As clothing with built-in gadget controls is becoming increasingly common, from mini-skirts to pinstriped suits, the variety of tech-friendly sportswear has expanded exponentially. But you know the concept is truly valid when it's taken seriously by bicyclists.

The "MicroSensor MP3 Bib" from Pearl Izumi goes a step further than most wired apparel, which usually includes only controls sewn into the fabric. ProductDose says this cycling bib actually includes an integrated 512MB MP3 player along with its embedded controls, which are strategically placed for easy access so you won't kill yourself while riding--unless, of course, you keep … Read more