I’m in even worse trouble now. A few weeks ago I had to speak at Barry Ritholz’s conference but that turned out to be “only” a panel. It was a great panel but I knew I would only have ten minutes of time so wouldn’t need to prepare much although even then I was worried.
Now I’m speaking for one hour at Defrag in Boulder, Colorado next week on November 9 and I’m terrified. For one thing, all of the other speakers are smarter than me. Right before me is Roger Ehrenberg speaking about “big data”. I’m not even sure what “big data” is so right off he’s smarter than me. Then Paul Kedrosky is speaking later in the afternoon about god knows what. Paul has an excellent blog obsessed with everything from economics to weather data. So despite my expertise in speaking I’m finding I’m a bit nervous.
I could open up with the same line I used on Barry’s panel, “When I was walking over here I had an erection. Not so easy for a 43 year old without any stimulation whatsoever.” But this might not be the exact crowd for it. → Read More
Now, you might think that making a product that isn’t terrible should be so obvious to every company on the planet as to almost be nonsensical. Indeed, who would ever advocate building a product that sucks? But the fact is: many products do suck. How can something so obviously important and universally recognized by so infrequently accomplished?
It’s a surprisingly complex question. But I think it all boils down to variations on a single, simple answer: it is much, much easier to build a product that sucks than one that doesn’t. Here are some reasons why that is true (and what you can do about it): → Read More
Heading off to college? Here’s my suggestion: buy a used laptop from Craigslist and install Ubuntu onto it. Seriously. You don’t need a new computer for college. If you’re pursuing a liberal arts degree, you really don’t need a brand new computer just to write all the papers you’ll write. If you’re pursuing an engineering degree, the chances are high that your department’s computer labs are better than anything you can buy for yourself. → Read More
Dr. Fitness and the Fat Guy are Dr. Adam Shafran and Lee Kantor, two guys in Atlanta who talk fitness online and over the air. We asked them to answer a few reader questions and invite you to send in your questions to tips @ crunchgear dot com with the subject line “FITNESS.” Include your geographical location. We’ll run these Q&A sessions regularly.
What burns more calories? Playing World of Warcraft or Farmville?
Bart, NYC
In the real world, soldiers and farmers burn around 450 calories per hour doing what they do (size, gender and age can also impact this number as well as what type of task is being performed). When it comes to gaming, obviously the calories burned will be much lower. For example, according to calorie estimates from the Mayo Clinic, you burn about twice the calories playing tennis, boxing and golf when you do it in the real world as compared to playing them virtually on the Wii. To answer your question, doing something awesome like playing WoW always burns more calories than doing something lame like playing Farmville.
There are no healthy snacks in the vending machine at my work? What should I do?
Sandra, Bridgeport, CT
Control your own destiny – bring your own snacks to work. Don’t rely on the man. Find a place to store your snacks like a common area refrigerator/freezer. Or, if you have to, bring your snacks in a small cooler. Frozen fruits like raspberries and peaches are great because they are loaded with antioxidants and have the texture of a sucking hard candy. Walnuts and almonds are loaded with protein which makes you feel full fast – but don’t go nuts and eat a lot because they have a lot of calories. Some other easy mid morning or mid day snacks are: peanut butter and jelly or apple butter on whole wheat; roasted veggies like carrots, red peppers and sweet potatoes and hummus on pita chips. → Read More
Every few months we get a press release about some great device from a no-name manufacturer who promises to change the world. One example was the TXTR reader from Germany last January. Another is zzzPhone, a company selling dual-SIM Android powered smartphones from China. Neither company produced much of anything. Era of the Silicon Valley success story – two guys making something cool in a garage and selling it – is over, at least in hardware. The costs of making consumer electronics, including cellphones and computers, on a small scale have risen so much as to be prohibitive and then the marketing costs of that same hardware is even more prohibitive. Whereas, once, two nerds in a basement could build a computer company I worry that it takes more resources than any one man or woman can muster these days to even approach something like success. → Read More
Tired of your boring home town? Want to “see the world” like you’re the star of a Disney Channel movie? Do what I and countless others have done—go abroad for a few months, experience a new culture, then come home all like, “Um, now what?” Very exciting, yes! To that end, I’ve compiled a few odds and ends that might make your trip abroad less annoying. You know, gear, junk, wisdom, etc. → Read More
This just in from a BFF poster: Unlocking the iPhone is getting popular in the undergrounds and AT&T is lossing millions dollars because of this activity. What with Jailbreak and Metasploit, people can now easily unlock their iPhones or tinker with their units. But there are a lot of reasons why you should not unlock your iPhone. http://www.iphone-codes.com says aside from the risk of getting virus or other malicious codes from third party applications, you disqualify your phone from the official support page of Apple. A lot of those how have unlocked their iPhones have complained of several malfunctions, including unresponsive buttons, sudden screen pause, changing colors of the screen, etc. And when you post questions about these problems at Apple’s Support Forum, you will not get any answer. So if you are now thinking of unlocking your iPhone using Jailbreak of Metasploit, think again. My advice would be to leave the iPhone as it is and wait for the official unlocking of the iPhone by Apple. CG’s BFF: Accepting unsubstantiated advice as gospel truth for less than a year. iPhone Codes → Read More
This is something that may be near and dear to your hearts: Mom and Dad are calling to ask about this porn pop-up phishing thing they just typed all their credit card info into. Or maybe Grandma wants to make a MySpace page. Regardless of the situation, you have some older folks in your life who probably have a computer. If you’re reading this, you’re good at computers. Therefore, you’re the one who gets the call. This Help Key is for you. → Read More
If you were one of the tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of people who lined for hours, or even days, for a chance to get a Sony PlayStation 3 or Nintendo Wii, and actually scored a system you probably thought you were all set. But after a long night, you likely forgot something… or more to the point Sony and Nintendo planned to get a few more dollars from you with stuff that wasn’t in the box. But even then you might not have everything to get the absolute most out of these systems. Here’s a list of a few accessories and peripherals that you’ll want to put on the holiday list. → Read More
