And sold!

Were you thinking about buying that iBook that Tom put on eBay yesterday? Too bad—it sold in less than 20 hours to a Buy It Now bidder.

Don't be too disappointed, though, as we're about to put a bunch more of our old and nearly-new hardware up for sale. If you're interested in getting a sneak preview (and maybe a sneak purchase price), drop me a line.

iBook for sale

I'm selling my Blueberry iBook on eBay. If you buy it, and if you mention that you saw the listing here on Backup Brain, I'll throw in your choice of another of the listed bonus software packages, or a signed copy of any of our books (as long as we have author copies here; we've got copies of most of the recent ones).

Cruising with the geeks

Robert Scoble had breakfast today with Neil Bauman, founder of Geek Cruises. Robert reports:

He says that his attendance is going up because word is getting around that his attendees actually learn more on a cruise than they would if they went to a traditional conference (or paid for training in house). Why is that? No cell phones or beepers (although they have 802.11 on many cruises).

It's great to hear that attendance is going up, given that we're scheduled to speak on two cruises in 2003 (so far!). But I'll disagree about the cell phones; given that, in Alaska at least, the ships don't sail far from the coast, you can still get a cell signal on much of the trip. Or at least you can if you don't have a #$%^ GSM cell phone like mine.

Also, all the speakers are forced to stay on the boat with the attendees, so there are geeky conversations late into the night.

This is the biggie, here. This is why, after having gone on three geek cruises myself, I think (and I've said this before) that geek cruises are the best dollar for dollar education deal out there. Why? Because you get serious face time with the instructors and plenty of time with the other attendees. It's the informal hallway conversations that make most conferences worth attending, and on a cruise ship they're not only more likely, they're downright inescapable.

I am hoping to get NEC to help sponsor his cruises. After all, we have a laptop that can be used in full sunlight. Heh.

Forget the laptop. I want the NEC LT260 projector that got mentioned in the most recent issue of Newsweek.

(I should probably mention (1) I think that Newsweek got the description wrong and it's actually 802.11b, not Bluetooth, (2) I don't think that the LT260 works with Macs (dammit!), and (3) I don't think that Robert works for that division, anyway (or I'd be bugging him about point 2)).

Not just me?

Matt Haughey writes about his recent experiences with Amazon's Super Saver Shipping, which, oddly enough, duplicate exactly my iPod purchasing experience. We both have found that the way that Amazon saves money on free shipping is by, well, not shipping. Ever. Eventually, you get fed up and change the order to paid shipping, and voila! your items ship.

Which reminds me... (I go and check). Amazon says that my new phone is due to arrive sometime between October 24 and November 27. Well, I'll just sit around waiting by the mailbox for it, then.

Book pricing

It's not enough to publish a book; the job continues to make sure that it keeps selling. A while back I noticed that my book Microsoft Office v. X for Mac Inside Out was selling for list price on Amazon, though it had begun there with the usual 30% discount. Almost as soon as the discount came off, the book's sales rank worsened. An e-mail to Microsoft Press resulted, after a bit, to the book once again being discounted. Let's see if sales pick up again.

Bushism of the Day

Bushism of the Day:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."

Hubzilla

Rampaging across your desk, breathing destruction and FireWire connectivity from its eerily glowing mouth and eyes, it's Hubzilla. Fear him. Desire him. Wonder who the hell came up with this idea.

Now, if only this worked elsewhere...

I ask, and I get. Note the button for Web Design World on the lower right.

Late, but close!

Last October, I wrote:

• 1995: Windows 95 shipped in August
• 1996: Jennifer Katherine Gates born, approx. 9 months later
• 1998: Windows 98 shipped in June
• 1999: Rory John Gates born, approx. 9 months later
• 2001: Windows XP shipped in October

Today's followup: Phoebe Adelle Gates, born 10.5 months after XP shipped. Add your own punchline about schedule slippage here.

Once more, with feeling

Having done a writeup two years ago on Fray Day 4, I felt like I should at least say something about Fray Day 6. But when I try, about all that comes to mind are those annoying people that say, "Well, I used to be fans of <band name here> before they got famous, but now that they're so slick and popular and commercial I don't listen to them."

I can't stand those people or that attitude. Why is it a bad thing that more people like the band? And why is it a bad thing that they're changing to be more accessible to a larger group of people? It always seems like just the fact that more people like the band means that they can't be good any more.

I love the new Fray Day, even thought it's slick and commercial and popular. But I miss the old Fray Day, where I knew everyone, and I'd read most of the stories before, and everyone wore a name tag and spent time checking out the art projects. It's not better; it's not worse; it's just something different entirely.

Everyone's got to grow up eventually, and nothing ever stays the same forever.

Seven? Good lord.

I pitched a book on weblogs in late 1999 or early 2000. It was probably a good thing that it didn't happen, as it was way too early in the game for a good book. No books on weblogs came out in 1999, or 2000, or 2001. According to a recent check on Amazon, though, there are seven books coming this year focused on weblogs.

• We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs by Paul Bausch, Matthew Haughey, Meg Hourihan (Wiley)
• The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog by Rebecca Blood (Perseus)
• We've Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture edited by Rebecca Blood (Perseus)
• Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content by Biz Stone (New Riders)
• Running Weblogs with Slash by Chromatic, Brian Aker, David Krieger (O'Reilly)
• Essential Blogging by Shelley Powers, Cory Doctorow, J. Scott Johnson, Mena Trott, Ben Trott, Rael Dornfest (O'Reilly)
• Blog On: Building Online Communities with Web Logs by Todd Stauffer (Osborne McGraw-Hill)

If I missed any, let me know. Can you say "critical mass?" I knew you could.

Stop me before I shop again!

Remember when I swore that I'd never buy another GSM phone? Forget I said that.

Conference Plugs

Small site change: the Web Builder conference is over and past, so their button is no longer over on the right. And if someone would send it to me, I'd be happy to add one for Web Design World Boston (hint, hint).