THE DREAM IN ACTION

Symbaloo is taking on the bold challenge of entering the customized start page arena. With giants like iGoogle and NetVibes dominating, it is a very competitive market to attack but Symbaloo has a very clean design that just may catch on.  Using the default size of 10×6 a user has 52 blocks to customize with links and drop-downs.  You can add any of your own blocks or choose from Symbaloo’s list of the most popular web 2.0 sites (blogs, search engines, wikis, etc.).  Symbaloo also offers a tour video that explains the whats and whys.

Although I like the design that Symbaloo offers I still like everything viewable without any clicks. The simplicity that Symbaloo offers is its strongest asset and the users they get will be drawn to it because of the simplistic design. However, I’ll probably stay with iGoogle for now.   

 What customizable homepage are you using?

I purchased the SCH-u740 (see image) two weeks ago and now have had some time to play with almost all the features it has to offer.  What makes the phone special at first glance is its 2 way flip feature. For normal phone calls it flips open vertically just like the Razor or any other flip phone, however, for speaker phone, text messaging, or internet use, it flips horizontally providing the wide-screen and full ‘qwerty’ keyboard.  This feature is phenomenally designed, and as long as the hinge stays in tact, very well engineered.  The phone and the hinge seem very durable, and although very thin, it seems tough to standard wear and tear.  The phone’s camera is quite impressive aswell allowing for different lighting levels and flash strengths, although I have not yet figure out the zoom feature.

The only negatives I have found with this phone thus far is how tiny the key pad actually is. To fit the number pad and the full keyboard they really had to squeeze. I would not recommend this phone for the elderly (sorry Dad) as it would be very tough to read the keys.  With the standard two-year agreement that almost all wireless phone companies now require the only true test of this phones quality will be the test of time. But, for now, job well done Samsung.  I’ll keep you posted. 

Specifications for the Samsung SCH-u740
Band	CDMA 800/1900MHz
Data	EV-DO
Size	97.5mm x 51.9mm x 14.8mm (3.84″ x 2.04″ x 0.58″)
Weight	104g (3.7oz)
Battery Life	Unknown
Main Display	2.2″ 262k color TFT LCD, 176×220 pixel resolution
Sub-Display	1.1″ 65k color STN LCD, 96×96 pixel resolution
Camera	Yes, 1.3 megapixel resolution
Video	Video capture/playback
Messaging	MMS/SMS
Email	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
Infrared	No
Java	Unknown
Polyphonics	Yes
Memory	Unknown on board memory, microSD memory expansion
Availability	Late Q1 2007
Other	QWERTY Keyboard

What phone are you using?

  This new start-up is the classic example of, “if there is a need, there is money to be made”.  The story of this start-up (as told on TechCrunch) begins when founder Mat Mullen had his iPod stolen last year in Silicon Valley. He decided that there needed to be a way to resolve the huge problem of “portable device theft”. So with the inspiration of the Low-Jack for automobiles he has created iHound. iHound uses the USB connection of portable devices (think iPod or jump-drive) to locate the device by sending a device’s IP address, ISP name, and computer whenever it is plugged in. Obviously an internet connection is needed to locate the device and apparently, the device will not work yet for MACs or cell phones.

For all of us out there trying to find the next great idea focus on what “needs” have not been met and where are there “market gaps”. 

 

 

Today the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) released that they would be creating an “internet index” that will follow many of the large internet companies (i.e. Google, Yahoo) and other publicly traded internet companies.  As Duncan Riley on TechCrunch speculated, it is likely that any good or bad news around Google would have a VERY large effect on the index.  I strongly agree with Riley that the rise of this index shows the growing importance of the internet and the companies that it spawns in the US and global economy.

My question is this…Will the existence of this index alleviate or encourage another bursting of a tech bubble? Now that there is one number that inevitably everyone (myself included) will comment on and scrutinize as the “grade” given to our industry, will it serve as a pump to the next tech bubble? Or, will it help us to track the industry more closely and help prevent another bubble?

My hunch is the former. I think that having this new index that people can follow and get inevitably excited about, people will blow it up even faster causing another “pop”. The more stock people put in this number as it grows the more money will poor into Silicon Valley and nationwide internet start-ups.  Eventually, as it always does, the newly measured internet economy will correct itself.

What do you think?

This is ActionsTalk’s first holiday post and boy am I excited! For the Holiday, not the post.

This Thankgiving I’ll be headed south from Chicago to Kansas City on the busiest travel day of the year. The weather is turning for the worst and my flight is delayed 2.5 hours.  I’m very anxious for the upcoming weekend. The plan is T-day dinner at my girlfriends brothers house then on Saturday we are headed to the Mizzou(3) v. Kansas(2) game at Arrowhead stadium. 

An article in the Wall Street Journal this morning talked about how big this game is going to be and how much the states of Kansas and Missouri hate each other.  During a normal Chiefs game they usually have to replace about 15 seats from rowdy fans, Saturday they plan to replace about 500! When we originally purchase the tickets for this game early in the season they were selling for $40/person, now on eBay they are selling for well over $300/person! This is a very unexpected match up and makes a vicious rivally even more thrilling. What a fantastic way to rap up a turkey day weekend.

Pictures to come next week.

Version 3.0 of the logo is out and on display. (Top left) Feedback in welcome!

Please comment.

This is the new AmazonKindle. Let me start with, I want one. It is a wireless reading device with a hi-resolution screen. It collects reading material (newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, etc.) and is designed to replace the need of carrying a book. It is about the size of a common soft-backed book.

Amazon obviously could have spent a little more money on the design of their new product the Kindle, but as far as functionality goes it looks phenomenal! I think that its a great idea that will definitely catch on. As an avid reader myself I would definitely use this product. Although there are a few things that I would be skeptical of:

• durability
• accessibility (internet connection)
• cost of content (book, magazine, newspaper, blog)

If they can keep consumers happy with those aspects of the product they will have a hit on their hands and make a lot of money.

watch video of the Kindle here.

Not that I want this to happen any time soon, but I’ve been thinking about kids, having them, and the effect they have on ones life. Joy, challenge, and the deepest possible satisfaction a human can feel are the effects that I’ve come up with.  Having kids allows one to be 100% selfless and I think that selflessness is the only “real” way to find happiness.

Kids put a smile on my face almost all the time.  Sometimes you just want to smack them for running down the aisle of an airplane or crying on the flight, but most of the time they are care-free, curious, full of smiles and truly joyful.

That’s something that I’ll definitely be interested in…someday.

Bringing a child into this world is hands down the best contribution one can have on the world, provided they dedicate themselves to raising the child properly; showing love, compassion and sacrifice for the child. Nothing a person does can have a longer lasting impact on this world. Having a child can potentially have an infinite impact lasting generations  and generations to come. There are many reason people have children, the contribution to man-kind is just one of them.

When I’m ready (not today or any day soon) I’ll will be so pumped to have kids.

Milwaukee skyline

On December 10 & 11 I will be moving my bed from Chicago to the lovely city of Milwaukee.  My first night living in Milwaukee with be in January as I begin my new job (much more to come on that later).  I will be sad to leave Chicago as I have had a wonderful year here but I’m very excited for the new stage of my life that will begin in Milwaukee.  There are many new and exciting opportunities to come.

The US Dollar has decreased by roughly 12% in the last year.  This directly affects the

US’s ability to hire quality individuals from other countries (outsource). As industries like technology, health-care and sciences begin to rely more on the less expensive but very well educated individuals from other countries it is very important for the

US to keep the dollar strong against foreign currencies. 

The

United States has done a very good job in its relatively short history in educating its citizens and that is a very large reason for our success. However, other countries are beginning to provide very high quality educations and in order to keep the “quality” or “competitive advantage” within the US we need to be able to pay these individuals to stay and work domestically. If the US Dollar continues to decline at this rate we will not be able to pay these competitive prices for people.  India graduates 1.5 million engineers a year and the

US graduates only a couple hundred thousand. The crop is dwindling and WE WILL NEED TO BE ABLE TO HIRE COMPETITIVELY!  The private sector may be benefiting from higher prices from our exports but it needs to start pushing the government (FED and the like) to focus more on regaining strength in the US Dollar.

Really the topic of this post is: How to write attractive headlines for your blog posts.

Blog post titles are extremely important.  It is the first thing that the reader sees in their RSS, SERP (search engine results page), or social bookmarking site.  Also, your title is probably the number one thing that will affect a search engines ability to accurately categorize you post/site.

There are a few well know factors in writing blog posts and attracting readers to your site. As ActionsTalk is very young we have yet to build a substantial reader base but we are on our way.

Here are a few keys to quality blog post titles:

•  Post titles should paint a clear picture of the subject matter of the post (obviously I didn’t follow this very well here).
• Post titles should entice the reader to continue reading the rest of your post.
• Post titles should use keywords and phrases that will be picked up by search engines.

Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian, and Youtube were all in the top 15 most search terms on Google this week.  With this post title I will test the validity of the claims made in this post.  Currently the site avgs. about 25 unique readers a day my guess is that this post title will shoot the unique reader number well above the avg.  A post of the results of this test forthcoming.

Another interesting post on this issue found at CopyBlogger.com

As I work on  logos for ActionsTalk and other projects, I found this to give me a little artistic inspiration.  I’d say this is a good place to start…

Of all the folks out in Silicon Valley rolling in the cash the ‘Googlers’ are now among the wealthiest.  Michael Arrington wrote on TechCrunch recently about how there are 1,000 Google employees who’s stock grants and options are worth, now with the recent increase in price, over $5 million.

See said increase:

 

There are other Google employees who haven’t made millions but think about this…those who joined Google just one year ago, when I joined the workforce, are doing just fine also.  Those hired one year ago, on avg. received 685 optioned shares and are now worth on avg. $276,000 or $662 per share. Also they received 230 shares outright.  Decent huh?

 Would you accept a job that pays $276k + $50k = $316k a year right out of college? I might.

 

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

I’ve started using Flickr to manage the images on this site. My intent is to improve the aesthetics of the site and of the posts. Flickr automatically imports the images in the style that you choose and was very easy to set up from there site.  The Flickr “professional” was not needed to attain this feature. Any one with a camera and an internet connection can set up this free Flickr account. Not bad.  I hope you enjoy the pics!

Using the feedback that I got on the last logo post I’ve created this very simple version of the logo.  All comments are welcome, so please give feedback. I encourage you to tell me I’m an uncreative, unimaginative, piece of ____.  Just tell me something!