I’d rather be surfing

Yeah yeah yeah - its been a while… I have a good excuse tho… I’ve been working at a new startup called Bizo. And as you know, startups are a lot of work - blah blah blah.

Anyway, I am getting to the point where I feel like I can come up for air and spend some time on this blog again. Stay tuned and I’ll be sharing more about Bizo soon. In the meantime, you should follow us on twitter.

-Donnie

Chris Anderson has finally pushed FREE past the tipping point into the minds (and business plans) of entrepreneurs everywhere. Chris Anderson’s Wired article does a good job at explaining how FREE can and should be part of any business’ strategic plans. While applicable to any business, FREE fits particularly well with internet businesses…

For those who have been paying attention, the momentum behind FREE has been building up over the last couple of years as entrepreneurs and other Big Thinkers have been espousing various observations about different models and industries. I have found a few posts to be particularly though provoking and worth reading at least once (if not multiple times).  Here’s my list of must reads on the topic of FREE that every entrepreneur should read in addition (or as a primer to) the Wired article:

• Mike Masnick’s — The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free
• Fred Wilson’s — The Freemium Business Model
• Josh Kopelman’s — The Penny Gap

Let me know what you think about these and the future of FREE.

You can reprogram your Comcast DVR Remote to have a 30 second skip button by following these simple instructions:

0) Press the Cable button to put the remote into control mode for the cable box.

1) Press and hold the Setup button until you see the Cable button blink two times.

2) Enter 994 on the number pad. The Cable button should blink two times.

3) Press but do not hold the Setup button again.

4) Enter 00173 which is the code for 30 second skip

5) Then Press the button that you want to use for 30 second skip. You should use a button that you won’t mind missing like the HD Zoom button or the FAV button.

That’s it. Now you have a 30 second skip button!

Original instructions here.

I was chatting with some friends about working from home/working remotely came up. I mentioned that one of the big pieces missing is a way to whiteboard. Whiteboards are one of the best ways to share ideas and conversate. A friend mentioned that he saw a youtube clip of a guy that took the Wiimote and programmed some software to turn it into a tool for a virtual whiteboard. It’s not networked yet but you could easily see the potential of a networked version of this “Wiiteboard”. Check it out!

The guy behind this technology, Johnny Lee, has some other very cool Wiimote projects that you should check out too!

I am a fan of Ira Glass’ “This American Life“. The show is a great combination of honesty and insight with a healthy dose of hilarity. It’s great. And its available from iTunes and directly from the ThisAmericanLife.org website.

I am writing about it because in episode #345 (12/16/07) before the show starts, Ira gets on and asks for donations because the show spends about $152,000 in bandwidth costs per year in order to distribute the podcast at no cost to the listener. I ran some numbers and I think they are overpaying by about $75,000!

Here’s how…

Continue reading…

There is a certain mobile startup that you may want to consider for your vote.

Check it…

If you put bacon salt on bacon does it taste even better?!

Thanks Russ!

If you like bacon salt, you might want to try the Bacon of the Month Club!

I’ve been using Techmeme as a news aggregator for the last year or so. Mostly on the train, to and from work. I’ve found it really boring lately.  Maybe its the normalization of blogging with traditional media?  Or the fact that most “A List” bloggers have become teams of bloggers and lost their voice?

Who knows?

I’ll add it to my OPML just in case but now its back to my 100+ blogs on Google Reader (even on the train).