Steve Holden's Blog

  • Business of Football: The Patriots

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    Forbes for 19Sep05 has an in-depth financial review of the National Football League (NFL) franchises and a "cover story" on the The Patriots owned by Robert Kraft.

    There is some serious money to be made.  For instance the project revenues for this ‘year’ (hard to define the start and the stop of the business calendar from the article) for just The Patriots stadium operations:

    • $107 million on Media (TV and Radio) [I recommend that you don’t think of podcasting a live NFL event unless you like to give your lawyer lots of money.]
    • $41 million on Premium Seating [80 posh suites generate $165K a year + 6000 club seats and 2 club rooms]
    • $40million on General Tickets [‘for the little people?’]
    • $38 million on Sponsorship & Merchandising [includes signage + naming rights]
    • $19 million on Stadium [concessions, parking, etc…]

    NOTE: At the end of the article there is a funny story where Kraft was in Russia with Citigroup’s Weill and News Corp’s Murdoch, and he showed off his 2005 Super Bowl Ring to Russian President Putin who admired it (124 diamonds) and then put it in his pocket thinking it was a present for himself  The ring is now on display in the Kremlin Museum. 😉

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  • Where To Go For China Business?

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    Russell Flannery at Forbes for 19Sep05 has his top ten recommendations:

    1. Hangzhou: Capital of Zheijang providence; home of Internet firm Alibaba that Yahoo just invested 40% into the company; plus a textile powerhouse; Marco Polo favorite
    2. Wuxi: Industrial hub near Shanghai
    3. Shanghai: China’s international business center; massive travel expo in 2006
    4. Dalian: Popular amoung Japanese investors
    5. Beijing: Hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics
    6. Suzhou: Mutlinational manufacturing mecca
    7. Ningbo: Big port rivals nearby Shanghai
    8. Nanjing: Military city finds new success
    9. Guangzhou: New airport boosts appeal
    10. Shenzhen: Booming Hong Kong border city

    The ranking process looked at: market size, transportation infrastructure, success in attracting private investment, and "other factors."

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  • New Potential Camcorder?!?

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    The old Sony Hi-8 system we bought before Conrad was born six years ago isn’t focusing anymore.  And I am on the hunt for a new video camcorder – we have two good digital cameras that offer medium quality video capture, but we still haven’t completely ironed out our digital video concept of operations.

    The JVC Everio GZ-MG50 with 30-GB HD for $999 retail  is pretty interesting move in the right direction I think. Records 7 hours of DVD/miniDV quality video to HD.  USB 2.0 to download (FIRWIRE?). And an SD card slot for taking digital pictures or for data upload.  More details  from JVC.

    More digging required of course … what  does Google Blog Search say?

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  • Mobile Workstation Desk?!?

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    CompUSA ran an ad over the weekend for a TableTote Stand for Notebooks, Workstations, and Projectors. The list price is $49.99 but they are selling the units for $10 off. 

    As anyone tried one before?  I looks useful for just setting up a laptop in a temporary space to do some work.

    I’ve tried in the past several mobile workstation stands that worked to some degree but the additional weight of carrying them around on travel didn’t make them practical.

    THOUGHTS?!?  Post a comment …

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  • Tech Tidbits Daily Podcast for September 13, 14, & 15, 2005

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    Today’s news is from MindJet whose flagship product is Mind Manager.  The latest version 6 was released on Tuesday and will be shipping on the 20th of September 2005. 

    Why (?) use this product in the first place you might ask:

    • I have been using it (Mind Manger 5) for the last year as a great way to: conceptualize new ideas, start projects, and hold meetings. 
    • It also a pretty good tool for capturing and planning to-do list items and high-level project schedules.
    • In addition, it works well with Windows and Microsoft Office, especially linking data from Outlook into MindMaps.

    Here are some of the things from my perspective (as a beta tester) that really makes this a powerful product upgrade worth considering:

    • Editable outline view ("This was my number one feature request!")
    • Better output options for Microsoft Visio & Powerpoint; and native "linking" support to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets & web pages via Microsoft Internet Explorer
    • Capture data directly in new charts or spreadsheets data elements
    • New organizational chart layout generator and improved map formatting
    • Action tracking via topic alerts and topic numbering
    • Improvements to Windows XP TabletPC interfaces

    Definitely worth taking a look at as a core tool in your tech software bag of tricks.  I hightly recommend the product.  It should easily pay for itself just by improving meeting notes and brainstorming.

    Save 10% at GoDaddy.com!

    The next GotoMeeting & TechPocasts.com event is Sept. 24th at 1:30 p.m. (PDT).

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  • Technical Woes

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    Sept. 12, 2005:

    OK … we are making some progress.  Some great guys at Craig @ Godcast.org, the Adam @ The MacCast Podcast, Kevin & George @ InTheTrenches, and Tim @ MacReviewCast have gotten me to about 50% on the "recording" part of podcasting on my iBook. 

    And I finally figured out that Firefox is much better than Safari with TypePad, so I got the Sept. 7th show posted.  Please download and let me know if things are working via the Web and/or your podcatching client.  If things are working for folks, then I’ll bust out the 8th and 9th shows; and finish recording the 12th and 13th show.  Maybe tomorrow we can get caught up!  Thanks for the kind emails of encouragement. – Steve

    Sept. 9, 2005:

    We are having some minor troubles in our grand plan to move from Windows XP desktop to Apple OS X via a new iBook as our podcast workstation.

    I have the 7th, 8th, and 9th of Sept. 2005 podcasts complete.  But there are some quality and production issues we are working through … mostly with Audacity … that have caused us to fall behind.

    We should be back very soon.  Sorry for the delay. — Steve (sholden@pobox.com)

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  • Tech Tidbits Daily Podcast for Sept. 12, 2005

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    Today’s podcast looks at news from The-Gadgeteer.com, XstreamRadio, and Newsgator.

    The-Gadgeteer.com has a hands-on review of a USB 2.0 to IDE cable that was sent to them by USBGeek.com.  It turns out that this cable is probably a very useful tool for system administrators supporting laptop users, power users who move a lot a data back and forth between multiple devices, and anyone doing digital cyber-forensic work on evaluating contents of an IDE drive.

    XstreamRadio is a Windows desktop radio application which links into over 700 international streaming radio stations. It also has a unique feature of allowing easy recording to MP3 format for future time-shifted listening.

    NewsGator (the RSS reader, RSS enterprise server, and hosting company) has made a major step forward and opened up their NewsGator Online API for both commercial and non-commercial use.  They are going have a competition to see who can use the APIs to build new innovative solutions.

    Save 10% at GoDaddy.com!

    The next GotoMeeting & TechPocasts.com event is Sept. 24th at 1:30 p.m. (PDT).

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  • Sept 24th TechPodcasts.com RoundTable

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    The lineup for the Sept 24th TechPodcasts.com RoundTable is shaping up very nicely. We want to make sure you mark your calendars now, we will send full details next week with the agenda. For interim details visit http://www.techpodcasts.com. In addition the video’s of the last 2 presentations are online now. Links are available from the main website.

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  • Tech Tidbits Daily Podcast for September 9, 2005

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    wedge Today’s podcast is "TabletPC" Friday! We examine news from:
    * Network World (including Keith Shaw’s Cool Tool column)
    * MobileEnterpriseMag.com (via Tim Barjarin Corporate Nomad column).
    wedge Devices mentioned include {TabletPC @ Amazon}:
    * Fujitsu LifeBook P1510D
    * ACER TravelMate C314XMi
    * Fujitsu Lifebook T4000
    * HP’s tc4200
    * Motion LE 1600
    * Toshiba Tecra M4
    * Lenovo’s ThinkPad X41 Tablet
    * OQO
    * Vulcan
    * Also kudos to Stone Brewery of San Diego County
    for their amazingly good Stone 9th Aniversary Ale with a 7.8% alc. vol.
    in a 1 Pt. 6 FL Oz bottle. Not only is it a spectaularly good tasting
    ale but the bottle is big enough to generously share with a friend,
    loved one, or significant other.

    NOTE: The above outline came from OmniOutliner Professional (opml).

    Save 10% at GoDaddy.com!

    The next GotoMeeting & TechPocasts.com event is Sept. 24th at 1:30 p.m. (PDT).

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  • Tech Tidbits Daily Podcast for September 8, 2005

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    FileMaker Pro 8 is now shipping.  Some new features that look compelling:

    • Create and share data from the database via Adobe PDFs that can be automatically password protected.
    • Output data in Microsoft Excel files for sharing and non-database analysis or reporting.
    • Email contents of any field within a database record.

    There are also a host of new features to add in the creation of: customized search, building layouts, auto complete data entry, calendar interfaces, and integrated spell checker.

    There are also new versions of the "Advanced" and the "Server" versions of FileMaker Pro 8.

    In related news, PC World for Oct05 has a "new product" review of this new version on page 50.  The reviewer, Edward Albro, gave this version a 4.5 out of 5 score.  The article noted something the press release that I summarized above — the list price for this version is $299 {Amazon} and upgrades from Pro 7 are $179 {Amazon}.  The highlighted new capabilities in the article: more options for sharing data, improved Web publishing features, and easier data input.

    Save 10% at GoDaddy.com!

    The next GotoMeeting & TechPocasts.com event is Sept. 24th at 1:30 p.m. (PDT).

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