Port management software for your home network router. From my friends at Pure Networks: Port Magic

3/100” hard disk. Gizmodo : Three-hundreths of an inch thick

Halloween at the Ludwig House. I’m moving my Halloween sub-blog to Radio finally – Halloween at the Ludwig House. Will be adding in category searching, etc.

Well this is news to me. Read on the MOM group today – quinine water or tonic water will glow when exposed to a blacklight! and the diet versions are not sticky. For use in lab setups, etc. A very short explanation here.

Outlook consuming RSS. Thanks to Greg Reinacker’s NewsGator, I know view RSS in outlook. Totally agree with his points, this is an easy way for me to view postings. love it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Ordered 2 copies yesterday –Amazon.com: Books: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5). We have three fans in the house and we need at least two copies to avoid bloodshed. As it is I am sure I will be last in line in the house.

FCG motors, and FCG motors and kits

Casket Props.

Personal knowledge publishing. A useful primer on blogs and some of their uses – Personal knowledge publishing and its uses in research

Lack Of A Viable Business Model Is Stifling Software Innovation. Dave Winer sez Lack Of A Viable Business Model Is Stifling Software Innovation. I’ll admit that the VC industry is a little risk averse right now (though I am relatively new to the business so what do I know). But Dave seems to be speaking from his own personal experience with Userland, and I’ll just point out that Userland may not be very fundable for lots of other reasons. I love Radio and have paid for it, but it has a lot of bugs (for instance when I upstream content to my own ftp site, none of the graphics links are correct, I apparently have to go handpatch the templates), has a really quirky interface, and is really not ready for broad use and adoption.

The other blog tools I have used are in this state as well. I have learned to love blogger, but sometimes when I try to bold a selection of text or insert a link, it puts the tags in the wrong place. Or sometimes it gets confused about whether I have published or not, and I have to do a bogus edit cycle on an item to convince it I need to publish. And why isn’t blogroll management just part of blogger?

I just presented blog tools and blogs to a set of casual internet users today and they loved the idea of a blog but the tools were totally intimidating to them – the interfaces, the terminology, the quirks are all overwhelming.

It is hard to think about funding businesses/products in this state. I realize that all the products will improve over the lifetime of any funding we put in, but I need an entrepreneur to tell me how they are going to use the money to achieve a level of breakthru business success, how they are going to break blogs out of the hobbyist/enthusiast segment and make them a more general phenomena. Maybe I have just not talked to the right entrepreneurs yet.

Jobs that Suck. My summer cleaning french fryers at the restaurant maintenance barn was no fun – Chris Pirillo – Jobs that Suck

Good News for the Buckeyes. Football Players Smith and Jenkins to Remain at Ohio State :: Both players will return for their senior seasons

Fixed site to work with Gecko. Gary Burd let me know that the default Sitemeter code was making this site unviewable for Gecko users, and pointed me to discussion about. I think I’ve fixed now, thanks Gary.

Plasma TVs and fan noise. Rich is looking into HDTVs – Tong main page blog: HDTVs. I’ve got a pioneer plasma and have been a little unhappy with the fan noise and hi-freq electrical whine that comes from it. after doing a lot of frequency analysis in the room and around the screen, we determined the noise was coming right thru the front of the screen. the only way to fix would be to put a plexi sheet in front of the plasma to create a sealed cabinet for the plasma, and then vent the cabinet out the back somehow. so just be aware of noise considerations.

Services and Links. O’Reilly Network: Services and Links [Jan. 13, 2003]