Thank you. IBM. for sending me a new keyboard for my T41 so quickly. For some reason. one of the mouse buttons just fell off the keyboard!

It was a warranty part and took me all of 10 minutes to swap out.

What to do with a half busted keyboard. Hmmm....

I know doing mapping applications in Flash isn't a big deal anymore. I've never done one personally. but I did just make some mods to one I asked my work-study student to create.

This is a map of the upcoming construction season at Lehigh University. The site will be officially "live" sometime next week.

The projects on this map start this May and will continue (in some cases) through January of 2007. As you can imagine. it's gonna be kinda messy here for a while ;-) Part of that "messy" environment is the attitudes of some alumni towards a particular change to campus. Whatever...that's the group we have to actively inform in order to reduce opposition.

Point: this Flash map is going to be a big part of that communications strategy. We're going to drive a lot of traffic towards it. Sure. it's a 100kb swf. but I think we'll manage.

The coolest part is that we've hooked it in to a couple web services to track which items get the most attention and can see in real time the results. I love it and so do the folks who are catching most of the heat here (Alumni Director for one. VP of Facilities for another).

My hope is to have a blog up by May that someone (probably me) will maintain that will include frequent updates on the progress of various projects with pictures. Visitors will get a lot more value out of their visit and in turn. will feel like Lehigh's money is well spent.

I got the Plantronics headset I was talking about a few days ago. Used it to call my sister-in-law in Germany via Skype and it worked really well.

I then used it to hold a project kickoff conference call (again via Skype) with a new client. Good comfort (even after an hour of wear) and sound quality is superb.

I highly recommend it!

Skype has raised the stakes again.

I've been using Vonage at home for over a year now. Perfectly reliable. great sound quality. no complaints. Highly reliant on my web connection. but overall very good.

Skype is beta testing SkypeIn. SkypeOut allows you to make calls from your PC to any phone anywhere on the PSTN (publicly switched telephone network) for a small per minute fee. Small as in pennies to Germany. where my brother is stationed right now. SkypeIn reverses that...now my brother can call me on my PC from the PSTN.

Just read it on /. so i'll be following up more.

Accessories I must have: a decent headset that is inconspicuous in public and the USB->RJ11 connector.

The headsets i see are mostly the telemarketer type...big. ugly. and meant to be worn for a long time. I want one that is like a handsfree cell phone accessory - tiny. integrated with the mic. Found one today: Plantronics .Audio 30. I'll write up a review once i get it in. It was only $20 so no big loss. BTW. the reason i couldn't use my current car phone thingy was because that's a single jack connector for headphones and mic - the computer splits out those into two inputs. I suppose i could have made an adapter. but who has time for that ;-)

As for the RJ11 connector. this is what will allow me to use my house phone for Skype calls. Don't know if I can use this and Vonage on the same phone (are they both SIP and will they conflict? probably!). This box runs about $40 but i found a coupon for $15 off that. Have to learn more before I take the plunge.

VoIP will be the death of Verizon. Comcast better not block this traffic to promote their own service either.

Damn i hate monopolies!

On the plane back from Phoenix last night I spoke with the guy sitting next to me. He was working on Powerpoint - I was playing with Flash. Turns out he runs a healthcare consulting company and is doing quite well. His company is highly specialized and is very service oriented as opposed to other companies in his niche who are more technology based with a service edge. The workflow system they use supports their service provisioning...and it's built in Filemaker Pro. developed in house.

He mentioned they were working on implementing a new workflow system. Being a consultant. my ears perk up and the scent of money filled the cabin. But my interest quickly faded when he told me that they were working with an offshore company to get the system built.

He made the claim that "you people are expensive" and that he could have three foreign workers doing the same work for $45/hr. combined. Sure. we're expensive. But I bet this guy bills out in the $200/hr range (no question) and has a decent size staff doing the same.

So tell me...

If the system is absolutely key to the success of your company. why would you accept a "lowest bid" from a company thousands of miles away? Why would you not want to use a company who could really get to know your business inside and out? Your niche is highly specialized and your workflow (as you told me) was adjusted for every client.

How do you plan on educating them in your business process? It's more than just a very tight. well-written spec. I bet I could have learned more about his business in a 4 hour flight than they could in a 50 page system spec.

If he's as sharp as I think he is. he should have been able to draw the parallel between his service-oriented approach and using local technology help. For many things. "you just have to be there" to understand it.

Consulting is all about that human element. Treating software implementation as a commodity is dramatically undervaluing the art and science of building workable systems.

I didn't offer him a card. I'll never win a price war - i'm an American with an expectation of a decent standard of living. Bangalore doesn't interest me at all!

Well. the big Microsoft machine is hard at work again...Stan (our local Developer Evangelist) and Bill (the local .NET User Group leader) have put their rather considerable talents together to bring Code Camp to Philly!

Looks like it's the weekend of April 23 and 24 in Center City. I've heard great things about these events - always code-centric and a rollercoaster learning experience.

If I can. i'll be attending. Need to stay familiarized with all platforms. not just the ones I use every day. I strongly urge all you locals to do the same. Registration is on the Phillydotnet.org site.

Best part: it's F-R-E-E !!!

Bad news...bad guys have found a hole in Firefox.

International Domain Name support in FF is apparently not quite safe enough. Sufficiently inclined evildoers could use this vulnerability to spoof any website they wanted to. Absolutely transparently to the end user. yikes!

Detailed instructions on the exploit here: http://www.shmoo.com/idn/homograph.txt

Simply switch "network.enableIDN" to "false" in about:config to avoid any issues until there's a fix.

Mark Cuban. of Broadcast.com and Dallas Mavericks fame. has a fascinating (if slightly schizophrenic) blog at http://www.blogmaverick.com/.

He's a big time technology geek and at the same time relentless salesman for his NBA franchise. I'm not a big basketball guy. but I love his attitude. He does tons of statistical analysis on his team (and the league). never shies away from calling people on their BS. and has been on a months (possibly years) -long rant against Hollywood studios and the DMCA.

Must be a real challenge to work with him. I can't imagine how much energy he must exude at work. Could be a real pain. or. if you live for that kind of thing. be totally invigorating.

Either way. his blog is a good read :-)

"Joel on Software" is one of the more interesting blogs in the blogosphere. I enjoy reading it and wish the writer. Joel Spolsky. would have the time to write more. Too bad he's so busy running a successful software company!

Anyway. point...

He'll be giving a lecture at CFUNITED this summer. I'm stoked! If he's as good of a speaker as he is a writer. it'll be great!

Just thinking that pairing Mach-ii with CSS-based layouts makes incredible piles of sense.

You can drop chunks of content into "content keys" that are set after each view-page. then put it all together in the final layout really easily.

Must experiment with this very soon.