Cleaning out the bookmarks and today's look is of Russell Shaw's bookmark list . Russell Shaw was a columnist and author covering the online industry, VOIP lately, and he died in March of 2008. I didn't know Russell , nor did I really know any of his work . I have no idea why I loaded and kept his bookmarks around. Maybe it was due to his Web 1.0 method handling bookmarks. While many of us have moved to online bookmark managers, Russell kept his in a simple HTML list in alphabetical order. It wasn't a simple bookmark dump from a browser, as he annotated all his links like so:

The Gartner Group constantly releases studies about technology. How cool would it be to review the trends in technology and issue research on it? Very cool job.

They released a new report on the top ten technologies for 2009. Here's their list:

I must own over 30 domain names. 8 are probably the only ones used on a regular basis. 5 of those are used each day. Why do people buy domain names and let them sit around? You can't let me on eBay or Go Daddy without taking the credit card away. 

I think there are five reasons people continue to buy domain names they know they'll never use:

Future development: This is probably the number one reason people continue to buy domain names they don't need. They'll have grand plans for a site, but they never get around to it. Whether it's time or money, the site is never built and the domain name goes unused. 

Protection of ideas: You're in the shower or driving and have an awesome idea for a new website. You run some names, find something you like and register it. You never go back to it. 

Future sale:The election, olympics, insert significant date here, is coming up. I should register this domain name to make some money. The problem is no one wants it. 

Current revenue: Site X just died and the domain name lapsed. It has a decent pagerank and some traffic. You buy it, put up some content and ads. Win, except for when people quit coming to the site and you drop out of Google.

Coolness: I can't believe that name isn't registered yet. How cool would it be to have this name? I have to get it before someone else gets as cool as I am. 

The problem most people talk about is time. Not enough time to develop their sites. Some others say it's timing. Who knows. What I do know is that once a domain name has been owned for two years it's harder to *NOT* renew it, as you now think there is value. False value, but value none the less. 

I hope so.

Cloud computing is defined many ways, but I perfer to think of it where your applications and data are stored externally to your PC. This could be a remotely hosted SAN, a series of servers or a distributed web application. They key point to me for cloud computing is that anyone, sitting anywhere can access their programs and data. 

Many folks have used a version of cloud computing for a long time, at least since the web started. In the last few years, though, cloud computing has gained a wide following due to the power in the browser and Web 2.0 applications. 

I've always been a big fan of the Bitdefender line of antivirus products. My first reason for using it was the fact it was built by Romanians. I figure if Romanian hackers can do so much damage, the Romanian antivirus teams should be just as effective. 

Owning licenses since the 2007 version, I recently purchased 9 licenses for Bitdefender Internet Security 2009. This is their mid-level home and small business version. It includes antivirus, firewall and other ancillary services. 

I've only upgraded four machines. Two went flawlessly, one failed, but was resolved. The last is still a failure.

Today I began rolling out the transparency thoughts to the managers on my team. One of the things that caused concern was the in out board idea. I had to explain a few things concerning my concept for the in out board:

It's not micromanagement: The goal isn't to micro manage the technician's time nor is it to prove when someone worked. It's about enhancing our customer's trust and allowing them to understand the ebb and flow of our daily work. I made a mistake in the way I brought it to the team, but I was very quickly able to see my error.

TechCrunch is great and their resource of CrunchBase is a great way to follow the life of a Web 2.0 company. Mike Arrington really found a great way of tracking these things. I've noticed lately that some of the companies are gathering spam as part of the user review process. 

The user review process of CrunchBase allows people to enter their own thoughts of the services listed. It's an attempt to capture user generated content that is helpful to other people. While the Crunchbase spam problem hasn't moved to cesspool level yet, it has become more and more aggressive.

Copyblogger is an excellent site that looks at copywriting skills for online ventures. Recently, they featured a makeover for a site called Hire a Helper. The makeover was limited to the landing page only, and it featured some good suggestions. The funny thing is that the makeovers were not from the perspective of someone wanting to actually use the site. 

Here is what Copyblogger missed:

Look at all open requests: When I go to a site like this I want to get a feel for how busy it is. I'm not going to waste my time with a site that isn't attracting service providers.  Look at Rent a Coder and you'll see what I mean on the right hand side. When I get into a site like this I can instantly see I won't be wasting my time. 

The internet is an amazing system. One of the chief reasons it works is that there is a collective trust that people extend to one another. Driving is like this. You trust that others on the road no how to operate their vehicles, that they don't want to run into you and that paying attention to your own driving is important.

On the internet many of those things come into play, but there are times when people break that trust. One of the more unfortunate things is when people copy website pages that aren't their own. Each of us that adds to this collective called the internet should be able to stake ownership to our creations. Unfortunately, there are people out there who simply scrape this content, check the display and tack ads onto it.