Tretakoff Musings

As usual, The Sports Guy does it again: a great column about how Boston fans have had it good for some time now. The key areas that make me wonder if we were separated at birth: "In the past 30 years, I watched the following players and coaches in their primes (or something that was reasonably close to their primes): Bird, Orr, Pedro, Clemens, Esposito, Havlicek, Cowens, Neely, Bourque, McHale, Tippett, Parish, DJ, Fisk, Nomar, Manny, Bledsoe, Lewis, Brady, Parcells and Belichick. I watched seven championship teams. Seven. Including two Super Bowl titles in the past three years. I also watched countless other teams that came damned close (including the '75 and '86 Sox, '76 Pats, '85 and '87 Celts, '78 and 79 B's, '96 Pats and last year's Sox team). Four fantastic things happened over this time, at least for me: 1. Watching the '86 Celts on a day-to-day basis. The best team ever. I haven't seen hoops played quite like that before or sinc...

Free headset for your cell phone? Kind of a cool idea, though it smacks of the early days of the web. :: FreeHeadset.org is giving you a free cell headset, plus $3.94 for shipping. Not bad; a little cheaper than the $5 you can get them for on eBay.

Great article today on Wi-Fi htospots in San Francisco, courtesy of Doug Fleener, by way of the Wall St. Journal: San Francisco 94110 Is Really a Hot Spot, My Wi-Fi Tour Shows May 24, 2004; Page B1 After spending the better part of a week methodically, albeit figuratively, peeking though my neighbors' walls, I can't shake the thought: Why can't we all just get along? If you're one of the millions of people who have bought a wireless computer networking product lately, you very probably, in the process of setting it up, detected other Wi-Fi products belonging to your neighbors. This happens because Wi-Fi signals can travel several hundred feet. When I got my first wireless network two years ago, mine was the only one. Now, I can "hear" three others, just from my living room. I wondered: If there are three right around my house, how many are there in my neighborhood? I set about finding out, though with an expansive definition of neighborhood: my entire ZIP Code...

Just when I though browser innovation was dead.... NetCaptor comes along. Seems to support all IE things, and adds tabbed browsing, like Safari on the Mac. It's clean, fast, and seems great; even works with the Google toolbar!

Ok, this might be the most useful Palm software...ever. Ilium Software's eWallet stores EVERYTHING: on your PC, Palm, and keeps them in sync. Every account, every clothing size...you name it! I just bought it: it's THAT GOOD.

Ok, I’ve been storing them up, but here they come. 1. How Not To Run A Business, Pt 1: Our offices are just past the Ferry Building in Downtown San Francisco. The only parking nearby is a lot right next to us that charges $35 per day (and you thought gas was bad!), or a lot in the next Pier over, Pier 3. Pier 3 is operated by Hornblower Cruises, and they have an automated parking system. Now, tell me if you’d park here if these happened to you: a. The main entrance to the lot is closed down for construction. The new entrance s located some 100 yards away, but is not marked and is 1/3 the width of the previous entrance, making it extremely hard to see. b. The new entrance to the lot is a dirt road on the side of a pier, with the San Francisco Bay inches away from you. c. Many of the lot’s spaces are taken by construction equipment, forcing you to park under prime spots for seagulls to relieve themselves on a regular basis. d. Here’s how the lot works: you drive in, past the place where ...

One of the funniest, smartest, and upbeat folks I've ever had the pleasure to work with and know is Doug Fleener, who's daily musings are a must read, especially if you are a fan of good customer service and good retail practices...as well as the origin of my much maligned expression of "Boy Howdy!"

Finally, all of my RSS issues have been worked out, and the blog is back to normal updating! Thanks got to Blogger Support, who really stepped up for a free service, and to FeedBurner, which makes my life so much better! I'm feeling a long list of rants coming on, but I'll save it for when I have more time. Look for one in a few moments!

This makes me proud to be a Marin resident: 270 cows generating electricity for farm . A new day has dawned. ;-)

Not entirely an irresponsible press, but... It seems to me that, as a reporter, it's your job to get the facts straight; everything else is secondary. But the folks at Computerworld, in this article: Security threats raise concerns about Bluetooth - Computerworld don't seem to have gotten the message. After reading that fixes were available from Bluetooth.org, i serached for half an hour in vain...only to find nothing. The response from Bluetooth.org's PR: Dear Josh, Thank you for your interest, but the reporter did not get that quote exactly right – patches WILL BE available in the summer timeframe. Sincerely, Sarah Talbi Marketing Coordinator Bluetooth SIG So, I'll keep my Bluetooth secure until then...

Remember when the web was cool? It is again: there's a free service to take all the RSS formats out there and translate them to standard RSS! FeedBurner - The spark for syndication success actually does what it says, and does it O so cool! As a result, the RSS feed for Treakoff.com is now accessible to ALL readers, including those in Trillian!

I have seen the future...and it is WORSE than Minority Report!: Marketing "Wiz" Develops Urinal Advertising If you're a marketer who is trying to capture a male audience is a way no one else has, urine luck. A company has developed an interactive urinal display designed to capture the attention of men when nature calls. Wizmark's newly patented device has a promotional ad message contained inside an angled 3.5" lenticular waterproof display, as well as flashing lights that are activated either by either someone's physical presence or by urination onto the screen. When activated, the screen also emits a pre-recorded audible message of up to 16 seconds duration, said Richard Deutsch, who invented the interactive plastic deodorizing unit for Wizmark, Islip, NY. Deutsch said the unit is going to be marketed for use in bars, restaurants, hotels, stadiums, race tracks, movies theaters, airports and train stations for either commercial or public-service messages. He...