Mac +/- for Macs & Mac users, plus or minus, more or less.

Facilitator: Mike Dawson  Scribe: Joel Bass  Contributors: Jeff Wimer, David Buchanan, Brian Cadieux

1. Innovation while maintaining stability
2. Freedom to experiment and explore
3. Advocate more choice, new ideas and alternatives to the current way of doing things
4. User friendly services and applications
5. Customers/ User base fully capable and knowledgeable of working with their technology
6. Having new tech before the users do
7. Solutions to problems the users didn't know they have.
8. Test bed for experimentation with new technologies
9. Expanded relationships with vendors
10. Show what's possible rather than hearing it from users
11. Investigate what other institutions are doing
12. Apply innovation to existing systems
13. Include users in the process

Comments added during the Gallery Walk: Hamp: "Technology leader, not follower." James Ptak: "Solutions Incubator?" Anonymous, regarding #8: "beTech has a test bed system"

My freebie (thanks Kymber) bike had a rear flat. After a very messy attempt to use a can of Fix-A-Flat on it ("Warning: Do not attempt to use on bicycle tires." said the can.) I took it by Blue Wheel Bikes to get repaired. Quoted cost over the phone: $9.50.

Standing there as the owner(?) fixed something else, I asked if there was any way to fix my bike's broken shifter for less than the value of the bike. Since the value of the bike was apparently about $10, the answer was no. Still, planning to get it repaired, I look around at the bikes.  "Do you ever deal in anything used?" I ask innocently.

"We do take trade ins, and it happens I have something now that would fit you."
"Funny you should mention it, because I don't even know what size bike I should be looking for." See, I thought maybe I needed a 17 or 18 inch frame.

Nope. The owner rolled out a 21" frame mountain bike. Biggest I've ever seen. 

So after a test drive, I'm now the owner of the best bike I've ever had and the only bike that has fit me since I was 13 or so. I actually have to extend my toe out to touch the ground from the seat. I'm not hunched up between the seat and the handlebar.  Blue wheel even swapped my old, still new-ish front tire for the older, worn down to nubs front tire on the new bike.

With the fenders and the new lock, it only exceeded my vague budget by a bit and less than forty times the $9.50 flat repair quote.  Plus I got the silly looking fenders added, so I can finally ride my bike to work in the rain without getting mud splashed. 

As I was gathering up my stuff to go, the owner said "Most profitable flat repair I've done all day!" 

The article is "Microsoft is Dead."

Here's the best quote:

Microsoft's biggest weakness is that they still don't realize how much they suck.

And unfortunately, many computer buyers don't know it either. But every week at the laptop clinics, I hear from someone who has just made that realization.

Watch out dynamic Internet, I'm taking a php class over the next 10 weeks. Soon your inner workings will be clear to me.

toothpastefordinner.com

Technorati Tags: Funny

Roughly Drafted does some great tech analysis.

In this article, they share some fascinating stuff I didn't know.

You should read the whole article, especially if you're considering rolling out an Exchange server in an enterprise environment. Say, a major public university for example.

One excerpt:

Users can easily fill up a 2 GB mailbox with saved email attachments on Exchange. The Standard Edition of Exchange only allows a 16 GB mail database, which can easily be filled to capacity by a little as 8 users.

Exchange can become a catastrophic nightmare to support once users start thinking of their Exchange mailbox as a file share alternative which handily sorts their huge attached files by date and message thread.

Technorati Tags: Tech, UVa

Technorati Tags: Funny, Tech

New to the Mac? Just easily confused, or want to learn more by watching TV?

Here you go!

Technorati Tags: Macintosh, Tech

1. Take a sip of whatever you're drinking.
2. Watch this Apple video.
3. Time it so that the last line of it comes right as you're trying to swallow.

Seriously, this is as close as I've ever come to doing a spit take on my computer.

Technorati Tags: Funny, Macintosh, Tech

This script can get you out of your Verizon cell contract if you have text as part of your service but don't have a separate text plan add on.

You know, in case you have some reason you might want to switch to some other carrier. Cingular, for example.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, Tech