AIG Blunder and letter to Secretary Paulson

Dear Secretary Paulson,

Although this event was probably calendared in advance and the venue required a substantial deposit, the AIG executives who headed out on a St. Regis retreat acted irresponsibly.

Since AIG is so confused about their priorities, I believe your office should publish the proceedings of the retreat as well as publicly list the attendees. I recommend your office use the AIG blunder as an example to them and other bail out companies of misbehavior that can not be condoned.

I do not want a purge and I do not want socialism. Instead give the struggling mismanaged business leaders clear guidelines on the proper business ethics you expect. I look forward to the future of responsible free enterprise.

[1. My note on October 10, 2008 to Secretary Paulson was prompted by http://act.truemajorityaction.org/]

[2. Since I imagine Secretary Paulson or his aides having little time to read my electronic missives I share this with the reader here;-]

Storm Mapping

Wunderground.com provides some useful weather maps. Note the approach of the Tornado Vortex Signature of the storm that is overhead now in Greenport NY. The URL that also includes the notation of lightning strikes is http://www.wunderground.com/radar/radblast.asp?zoommode=zoom&num=6&delay=15&scale=0.750&noclutter=0&ID=OKX&type=N0R&lat=41.07141495&lon=-72.35475159&label=Shelter%20Island%20Heights,%20NY&showstorms=10&map.x=366.5&map.y=230¢erx=402¢ery=226&lightning=1&smooth0&showlabels=1&rainsnow=0

= Tornado Vortex Signature : = Hail


This was an animated .gif so try the URL for the full effect.

SMS Enablers

A possible 5,000 text messages in a one hour event need to be projected onto the screen for audience to enjoy. How am I going to make that happen? Below are notes to myself and impressions of several services that I discovered. These are MY thoughts and NOT a complete investigation so any mistakes and misrepresentations are my misunderstanding. Go to the sites yourself, contact the contacts and do your own assessment.

TextMarks.com is my top candidate. Check out what you do with PHP on this developer page
http://www.textmarks.com/dev/docs/apiclient/php/?ref=devsb
Try an SMS to short code 41411 followed by a two letter state code like "az" for Arizona. Here is the useful code that creates the response you will see on your cellphone.
http://www.textmarks.com/dev/docs/etc/stateinfo/
TextMarks has an impressive TextMark Management Panel with options that range from Usage Stats, Configuration (of course), Developer Extension (nice, I'm still a llittle confused howtake best advantage here) to Share/Promote (includes a GET TSHIRT for wearable promotion--bravo).

Widgetbox guided me to TextMarks via useful page http://www.widgetbox.com/tag/sms so check here for lots-o-widgets-sms.

winksite got into this mix by colleague recommendation. They are useful to create a quickie cellphone web page. And the audience could post to the screen through a cellphone page if those 16 year olds all enabled Internet access on their mobile devices--NOT. See http://winksite.com/site/site_profile.cfm?susid=24779 to see how my colleague shrunk Cellphonia aka Cellphonia.org (I need to get around to re-directing the URL or redoing the home page et cetera).
Regarding SMS, winksite is not doing it now.

Mozes.com was an early SMS front runner candidate for me. But they never responded to my email or phone inquiries. I don't think anyone is there there because their code is not triggering. See http://wiki.mozes.com/developer/index.php/Gallery to understand the potential that intrigued.

msgme.com is another top candidate. It was recommended by a colleague associated with WHERE.com where [pun] I have GPS cellphone applications to finish ;-|. Message Me aka msgme by Waterfall Mobile seems to be carefully pursuing a SMS marketing platform model that precludes the customization that I require. However, the msgme focus and alliance with the carriers may so reassure my clients that they are willing to overlook the user experience issues, to be determined.

That's all for now. I've got ready for the proof-of-concept demo.

Cheers, ;-)s

Winky Dink

Winky Dink rediscovered. I'm cogitating a Help Winky cellphone game. Stay tuned.

Proper closure

I often struggle to find the proper closure for email or snail mail letters. So here is a quickly researched list for my future reference.

Always,
Best,
Best wishes,
Cheers,
Fondest love, (Princess Diana?)
Hugs,
Love,
Mahalo, (Hawaiian for thank you)
Regards,
Regretfully yours,
Sadly,
Sincerely yours,
Thank you,
Thanks,
Warm regards,
With every good wish,
With respect,
With kindest regards,
Yours faithfully,
Yours in haste,
Yours truly,

and in my search I discovered freesampleletters.info that provides useful free sample letters for a variety of correspondence.

Domains - Reality check 2008 June 04

Domains(24) in various states of deployment:

AZONES.COM
BLACKGLASSESLIKECLARKKENT.COM
CELLPHONIA.ORG
CTLSS.COM
FOOKIE.MOBI
HOLLYWOOD-USA.MOBI
HOT-N-COLD.MOBI
HOT-N-COLD.NET
MIGRARE.ORG
PET-PALS.COM
PETPALS.MOBI
PET-PALS.MOBI
RATRACEUSA.COM
REPORTSONTHEGO.MOBI
SALESHUNT.MOBI
SALESHUNT.NET
SALESPITCH.MOBI
TERESESVOBODA.COM
TOUCHTONETOUR.COM
TOUCHTONETOURS.COM
VUSEUM.MOBI
VUSEUM.ORG
VUSEUM.NET
WETOPERA.ORG

Domains(8) abandoned:

BULLANDSONS.NET
CUTLASS.TV
DIGITALGEPPETTO.COM
GOGREENPORT.COM
FONEOUT.COM
PHONETAGGING.COM
SMARTSTUFFANDGOODIDEAS.COM
TOUCHTONEREALTY.COM

SMS + Fookie

Following up on a colleague's suggestion, I may want to marry Fookie with an established SMS service. Mozes is the first one I begin to explore in my own meandering way.

Mozes SMS Service Raises $5m
Feb 21, 2007 ... SMS call-and-response service Mozes will announce in the morning that the company has raised $5 million in series A venture funding from ...
www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/21/mozes-sms-service-raises-5m/ - 72k

How do I create a keyword?
Go to our marketing site at campaigns.mozes.com and create a new account. When you complete registration, you'll see the option to "Get a Keyword". Click on that button to get your own Mozes keyword.

So I created "fookie" as a keyword and now I have my own new page to administer:
www.mozes.com/fookie

And then I created a personal identity to check on my campaign. Will this become a popular site for lucky chat? Stay tuned fortunate reader......

Other SMS channels to explore:
sms.ac
waterfall mobile
et cetera

Today's Featured Widget from Clearspring.com

I never heard of Clearspring before reading, "I would create a flash widget (i.e. using Wijering's or Flow Player's open source flash players) and encapsulate it with Yahoo's, Microsofts, Apple's or Adobe's (AIR) widget platforms. You can do a lot of this with Clearspring.com's APIs." from a posting to Meetup.com [newtech-1] list. The UI is a little busy for my taste, however an occasional Dilbert read boosts my spirits.

Odin's one good eye

The cellphone camera is Odin’s one good eye. The cellphone is a magical device connected to the Internet, a technology that is often portrayed as a cloud. Odin’s wife spins the cloud.

---

The 7th century Tängelgarda stone shows Odin leading a troop of warriors all bearing rings. Valknut symbols are drawn beneath his horse, which is depicted with four legs.

Inspiration source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tangelgarda_Odin.jpg



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FriggSpinning.jpg

Outbound Asterisk calls

For sometime I've been noodling with Asterisk and I now have three boxes chugging away in the iCloud. But I never enabled outbound calling. I shall use this post to chart my progress:

2008 April 14 - The great customer service from connect.voicepulse.com reminds me that I need to install a SIP softphone on my Debian Linux box.
- X-Lite from CounterPath and VoIPer (I can't find their URL) are two SIP softphone candidates.
- After I add the softphone, I will add an extension in my Asterisk dialplan to the SIP softphone that inturn will make the outbound call.

[to-be-continued]

Hosting Notions 2nd Qtr 2008

Comparing email & voip/Asterisk & web hosting providers

- I like Lylix.net [voip/Asterisk]
- Check out an outfit in LIC called SpecialAI [voip/Asterisk + web]
- I currently host some with Carpathia that provides scalable video streaming
- I'm ready to look beyond dreamhost
- The only host i've really been happy with is RimuHosting
- I'm very fond of Laughing Squid
- http://reviews.cnet.com/web-hosting/
- rackspace "fanatical support" is pretty comprehensive.
- I've had great luck with www.mailstreet.com for outsourced exchange/outlook, etc.
- Exchange means intermedia.net i am hosting with them more than a year and zero downtime and good support.

Bull at ITP visits Shawn's class

Who is Steve Bull?

WHERE.com and Game Park

Peak under Game Park hood + my coding method:
/jin/index.php
mapID=9 test.gamestatus.php
comments in jin

- Nokia N95 WHERE Jad/Jar is available in the Nokia 'Download' catalog
- WHERE contest
-- Begins on March 11th, Deadline for submissions is April 28th
-- Top prize is $5,000 and a presentation to the AT&T mobile team
-- Runners up will win cash and GPS-capable mobile phones
-- All good contenders get considered for distribution in WHERE on over 50 handsets across 6 carriers

References: JSR 179 jcp.org Nokia Sun

Nokia N95 Version Info

Key in *#0000# on opening main menu of your Nokia N95 and you will discover the device firmware version details. Mine are

V 10.2.006
22-08-07
RM-160
Nokia N95 (19.01)

I'm not sure AGPS is crunching number within and I want to optimize the N95 GPS capabilities in el Canyons de Nueva York. I imagine any tuning will help. Naive; maybe. So I'll be taking this unit to my local

Nokia Flagship Store
5 East 57th Street
New York NY
(212) 758-1980

to get the firmware upgrade gratis. That is, if the unit is still under warranty. Stay tuned.

N95 GPS results on WHERE.com

I'm building GPS widgets on WHERE.com platform and I recently received a Nokia N95 GPS phone because of my finalist status with Game Park in NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge. Below are results of an automatic test script reporting once a minute on a 2/19/2008 walk about with dogs in LES Manhattan. While I am still mulling over these results, here are a few observations about what I think happened.
- ID 404 to 414 is an inaccurate initial reading, too many 5 story buildings around that somehow got cached in my widget script. I was just sending the N95 data, not reloading my widget page. I was getting nervous and reloaded my test widget.
- ID 415 onwards begins a fairly accurate presentation of my path.
-- Note it took me 7 long minutes in the cold to restart with a new GPS fix from a new location with ~130 degree view of the sky.
-- Note WHERE.com currently sets a two minute limit when reporting a new GPS location and my test script reports once a minute.

ID   Latitude     Longitude     DTStamp
404  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:19
405  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:20
406  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:21
407  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:22
408  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:23
409  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:24
410  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:25
411  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:26
412  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:27
413  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:29
414  40.71666133  -73.99088102  2/19/08 11:30
415  40.71981695  -73.99262538  2/19/08 11:37
416  40.71981695  -73.99262538  2/19/08 11:38
417  40.71981695  -73.99262538  2/19/08 11:39
418  40.72050972  -73.99187738  2/19/08 11:40
419  40.72050972  -73.99187738  2/19/08 11:41
420  40.72168553  -73.99106693  2/19/08 11:42
421  40.72168553  -73.99106693  2/19/08 11:42
422  40.72269689  -73.99092369  2/19/08 11:44
423  40.72269689  -73.99092369  2/19/08 11:45
424  40.72333676  -73.99071816  2/19/08 11:47
425  40.72361152  -73.99054659  2/19/08 11:48
426  40.72361152  -73.99054659  2/19/08 11:49
427  40.72252171  -73.98870726  2/19/08 11:51
428  40.72207252  -73.98906031  2/19/08 11:53
429  40.72207252  -73.98906031  2/19/08 11:54
430  40.72100014  -73.98850366  2/19/08 11:55
431  40.72100014  -73.98850366  2/19/08 11:56
432  40.71921806  -73.98916785  2/19/08 11:57
433  40.71921806  -73.98916785  2/19/08 11:59
434  40.71892302  -73.98911412  2/19/08 12:00
435  40.71892302  -73.98911412  2/19/08 12:01
436  40.71711303  -73.98894229  2/19/08 12:02
428  40.72207252  -73.98906031  2/19/08 11:53
429  40.72207252  -73.98906031  2/19/08 11:54
430  40.72100014  -73.98850366  2/19/08 11:55
431  40.72100014  -73.98850366  2/19/08 11:56
432  40.71921806  -73.98916785  2/19/08 11:57
433  40.71921806  -73.98916785  2/19/08 11:59
434  40.71892302  -73.98911412  2/19/08 12:00
435  40.71892302  -73.98911412  2/19/08 12:01
436  40.71711303  -73.98894229  2/19/08 12:02

NYC Lotto 2008 January 26

Every once in a while I try my own luck. Today, I triggered my Fookie and on my command the computer pick 4 sets of numbers for me to enter into tonight's NYC Lotto:
1 8 13 44 45 49
25 26 32 42 45 46
5 19 21 46 48 59
6 15 18 23 48 59
and here's my French Fookie associated with the final number set.
- Bon chance