Download details: PortQry Command Line Port Scanner Version 2.0

Look at later – StronglyTyped’s pointers to CSP overview and a .net tool. I’d like an excel front end to specify the constraints.

WERBLOG points to a nickel-sized 1gig drive from Toshiba. I know Adrian is really happy with his usb storage keyfob. I am wondering what the logical endpoint of this trend is. When we can all carry around many gigs of data in a keyfob, along with a lot of MIPs, what will we use it for? It seems like most people today who carry around a lot of storage are either using it as a sneakernet, or as music storage. When i can carry gigs and gigs, will this change? I think the cached music storage scenario is a long term valid scenario. I can also see the cached photo/video collection with viewer – the digital equivalent of a grandma’s brag book – though the viewing surface bloats the size of the device, so maybe i just want a way to get video streams out. What else will we use a very small, powerful, portable device for? I personally find the need to capture info a lot when I am wandering around – i’d like to grab a upc code for later internet price shopping, or tag a song that is playing for later download, or remember a store/restaurant/location for later blogging, or capture a snippet of audio, or receive a bluetooth business card, etc. Today I whip out the blackberry and type things in, but I wonder if a keyfob-sized device that could capture and store a whole range of audio, rf, and visual input would be useful.

The Seattle Times: Sonics: Wallace should try using ‘M’ word: Maturity – this has just about killed my enthusiasm for the NBA. I didn’t get season tickets this year, just bought part of a season from some friends. Next year I doubt I do even that.

WERBLOG – Kevin points out that even the somewhat “exclusive” services like linkedin still are don’t provide enough exclusivity. The feature that lets you import your whole address book is probably a contributor to this problem, there ought to be a throttle on how many people I can try to link to per week.

Ok I installed Electric Shoebox and I am a little disappointed.

I already have my photos organized into file folders and subfolders. On a network drive so that they are accessible from all the machines in my house. But like every other photo mgmt app, Electric Shoebox wants to import them into a new container hierarchy (shoeboxes and albums). I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS. All of my myriad apps and camera uploaders all know how to deal with file folders, all my pcs can deal with file folders remotely, a new hierarchy scheme is bad bad bad. So for that reason alone I won’t use Electric Shoebox. The fact that its import wizard won’t even allow me to import from network drives, and that the import UI doesn’t seem to handle subfolders, just further makes it useless.

I want the sharing features but I want them to work with just regular file folders. I wish ISVs would get this thru their heads – don’t invent clever new storage hierarchies, the ones we have are fine. Just layer your functionality onto the existing hierarchies. There is no way I am going to adopt your private new hierarchy because no other app or vendor in the world will know what to do with it. Only the big boys like MSFT can push a new storage scheme (for instance WinFS).

Good conversation about outsourcing to overseas developers at Due Diligence. The distinction between low-level coding work which can be outsourced, and more architecture/design-heavy work which perhaps can’t be, is important. I am starting to believe that the boundary is moving in favor of outsourcing as communications and practices improve.

Amazon.com: Restaurants – menus of seattle restaurants – very cool. Thanks Gary.

The Powering Up of the Power Lunch – here we are, still indicting and prosecuting executives who have abused privilege during the last go-go surge of capitalism, and yet some people are already back to their old ways – living a very privileged life. Maybe it is their own money they are spending, but I would imagine that a lot of people look at the power lunches and other trappings of power and don’t feel warmly toward these folks.

Simon Willison: Nasty new IE vulnerability – wow this seems particularly horrific. I just did the test and to all intents and purposes I thought I was at microsoft.com, yet clearly I was not. Be careful about what links you click on until this is patched…

Digital Camera Software by Electric Shoebox – must try.

Going Commercial: Airline Economics: Fasten Your Seat Belt – good article about airline economics and the fact that as an industry, airlines have been a net money loser over their entire existence. I wonder if this is not typical of any capital-intensive industry, I seem to remember seeing the same analysis of the pulp and paper industry at one point tho I can’t lay my finger on it now. I don’t think this necessarily means a lot for society, society will still find a way to fund these industries as they have a lot of utility. As an individual investor or employee though, it certainly suggests that you should run away from these industries.

I tried a couple years ago to rip all my software cds and just mount their images as virtual CDs. It kind of worked tho it was frustrating. Here are some new pointers that make it worth looking at again – ComputerZen.com points to a driver from MSFT that mounts an ISO file as a virtual CD. Cdfreaks has a lot of great posts about Ripping of CDs – for instance here and here. I don’t care about making copies of CDs but I would love the convenience of not having to have all my game CDs on my desk.

Good set of links at Instapundit.com: covering recent debate about feasability and safety of nanotech.