Helzerman's Odd Bits : Weblog

Tuesday Jan 23, 2007

My new blog is at helzerman.com

Hi. For those folks still visiting this site, just wanted to remind you that I've moved my blog to http://helzerman.com. Please update your bookmarks and blogrolls.

Posted at 07:05AM Jan 23, 2007 by Catherine Helzerman in Sun | Comments[1] Tag it:

Tuesday Jan 16, 2007

Leaving Sun....

Hi. Just wanted to give a shout out that I've decided to leave Sun for another opportunity and my last day will be in a couple weeks (week from Friday actually).

I've met some great folks here and wish everyone the best of luck.

For those of you who get my blog via feedburner, you don't need to change a thing. The address will automatically get fed from my blog on helzerman.com. For those of you who visit me here and wish to stick with me, please visit my blog at http://helzerman.com

Posted at 05:39PM Jan 16, 2007 by Catherine Helzerman in Sun | Comments[2] Tag it:

Wednesday Jan 10, 2007

PC World editor, Rex Farrance, dead and accused of being involved in drug trade

From SF Gate today. I couldn't be more shocked. Rex was one of the first reporters I worked with when I entered the tech industry in the early 90's. He was always a great guy. Sad news indeed.

"Four masked men burst into a Pittsburg home, pistol-whipped a woman and fatally shot her husband -- a senior editor for PC World magazine -- in what police believe was a targeted attack because they said the victims had been involved in drug activity.

Rex Farrance, 59, senior technical editor at PC World in San Francisco, was shot in the chest and killed shortly after the assailants forced their way into his home on Argosy Court about 9 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said today.

The couple were apparently targeted because they had been involved in the drug trade, Conaty said."

Read the article here.

Posted at 05:03PM Jan 10, 2007 by Catherine Helzerman in OddBits | Comments[0] Tag it:

Monday Jan 08, 2007

"Social" Networks? Think again...

Very interesting insight/info from Steve Rubel today on teen use of social networks. He says,

"Conventional wisdom says that teens dominate social networks. Not so. The oldies are crashing the party. The vast majority of those who frequent these sites networking sites are over 25 years old, according to comScore.

OK then. Social network sites must then be about being social, right? Again not so. According to new data from The Pew Internet Project & American Life Project, some 55% percent of teens who publish to these sites do so through restricted profiles and pages. Further, 66% of teens who are socially networked have their profiles blocked from view by anyone but their friends."

So how about you "oldies" out there... do you restrict access to your SL house, myspace, etc. to your friends or are you open to the world?

Posted at 03:05PM Jan 08, 2007 by Catherine Helzerman in Social Networks | Comments[0] Tag it:

Second Life client source code now available!

From the Official Linden Blog:

"Stepping up the development of the Second Life Grid to everyone interested, I am proud to announce the availability of the Second Life client source code for you to download, inspect, compile, modify, and use within the guidelines of the GNU GPL version 2."

Posted at 08:36AM Jan 08, 2007 by Catherine Helzerman in Second Life | Comments[1] Tag it:

Sunday Jan 07, 2007

What The Simpsons would look like if it was a Manga cartoon.

Cool find on Neatorama: What The Simpsons would look like if it was a Manga cartoon. Link

Posted at 05:40PM Jan 07, 2007 by Catherine Helzerman in OddBits | Comments[0] Tag it:

Thursday Jan 04, 2007

Second Life Millionaire

Interesting article by Rob Hof of BusinessWeek today profiling Second Life's "first millionare."

He writes, "Anshe Chung, the virtual land baroness that I highlighted in my cover story earlier this year, My Virtual Life, has apparently become the first millionaire in Second Life.
That's millionaire in real U.S. dollars. Her real-world persona, Ailin
Graef, figures her net worth based on her substantial in-world land
holdings, cash in "Linden dollars," which can be converted to real
cash, as well as virtual shopping malls, store chains, and even virtual
stock-market investments in Second Life businesses."

What's really funny is that the cover of BusinessWeek (check it out here) is an avatar!

Posted at 05:14PM Jan 04, 2007 by Catherine Helzerman in Second Life | Comments[0] Tag it:

Monday Jan 01, 2007

Five things you don't know about me

It appears that I've been tagged by Simon for the "Five things you don't know about me" chain letter, so here goes.

1. Shortly after my husband and I were married I took him to a party where he met a family friend who was once a spy for Stalin (read about him here). My husband had to be wondering what he got himself into.

2. My nickname at IBM was Killer. One morning my husband received a call at 8am asking if "killer was there."

3. One of my outside work interests is scambaiting, "the practice of pretending interest in a fraudulent scheme in order to manipulate a scammer. The purpose of scam baiting might be to waste the scammers' time, embarrass them...or simply to amuse the baiter." wikipedia

4. In the 90s I worked on a project building and repairing computers for hospitals in Cuba. The computers for the project, which was sponsored by the Cuban Ministry of Health, were donated by people and companies in the US. Before we could ship containers to Cuba we had to explain why 486 PCs were not an ideal platform for weapons testing.

5. When I was younger I worked for Transworld Entertainment and met a bunch of famous singers including Ozzy Ozbourne.

And now for the next victims. I hereby tag: Ed Brill Mike Dolan Morgan McLintic Richard Schwartz Gordon Haff

Posted at 08:18PM Jan 01, 2007 by Catherine Helzerman in Personal | Comments[1] Tag it:

Sunday Dec 31, 2006

In which room would this fit best?

Recently downtown Campbell, CA (where I live) has been over run with expensive home decorator shops selling items that I can not imagine anyone buying. Here's an item that I saw whilst walking down the street the other day. Who would buy this and where would you put it?

Posted at 12:19PM Dec 31, 2006 by Catherine Helzerman in OddBits | Comments[2] Tag it:

Saturday Dec 30, 2006

Flight booking typo takes fellow 8,000 miles off course

Found on techdirt today. You've just gotta feel sorry for this guy...

"A twenty-one year old German tourist planned to take a trip to Sydney, Australia, but wound up 8,077 miles off-course
-- headed instead for the small oil town of Sydney, Montana, after
mistyping his destination into a flight booking Web site. The man
didn't notice anything was wrong until he was about to board a flight
from Portland to chilly Montana, dressed in summer vacation clothes."

I wonder how many people have confused other cities such as San Jose, CA and San Jose, Costa Rica (both of which are large cities) when booking travel.

Posted at 02:27PM Dec 30, 2006 by Catherine Helzerman in OddBits | Comments[0] Tag it:

Tuesday Dec 26, 2006

hamburger with peanut butter (for real!)

My husband and his siblings went to grad school at Purdue and acquired, along with their degrees, a taste for hamburgers with peanut butter! You'd think I'm making this up, but it's for real. You can get these "burgers" (and I use the term loosely) at Triple XXX Family Restaurant (lovely name).

This got me thinking, do all institutions of higher learning have a favorite gross food staple? Are MIT grads eating pickle flavored ice cream?

What did you eat when you were in school? Can you top this:

The Duane Purvis All-American - A very special taste treat!
1/4 lb. of 100% ground sirloin served on a toasted sesame bun with melted cheese on top with lettuce, tomato, pickle, Spanish onion and French fries. Add thick creamy peanut butter on the lower deck and you’re in for the touchdown!

Posted at 10:43PM Dec 26, 2006 by Catherine Helzerman in OddBits | Comments[2] Tag it:

air head

I logged into Second Life today and my avatar looked like this! All hair - no body/head/etc.

Posted at 04:34PM Dec 26, 2006 by Catherine Helzerman in Second Life | Comments[1] Tag it:

Saturday Dec 23, 2006

See my friend and ex-coworker on Conan O'Brien

One of my IBM buds has filmed another spot for Conan O'Brien. You can see his TV clips on his site here. Funny stuff.

Posted at 04:59PM Dec 23, 2006 by Catherine Helzerman in OddBits | Comments[0] Tag it:

Thursday Dec 21, 2006

Second Life discussion series starts in January

James Governor, founder of analyst firm RedMonk will join me in my Second Life home in January to discuss social networks, new business models for analyst firms, Second Life and a variety of other topics. Specific date in January TBD, but will be toward the end of the month. Please plan on joining us, and in the meantime, please comment here or via email with any topics you'd like to see discussed. Feburary's guest is already lined up and will be very entertaining (but you'll have to wait a bit to learn who it will be )

Link to my Second Life house

Posted at 02:18PM Dec 21, 2006 by Catherine Helzerman in Analysts | Comments[0] Tag it:

What the....?

Came across this via Google alerts. When you visit this site it says Helzerman's Odd Bits! Is this some sort of new spam that shows the name of your blog in a Google alert so you'll click on the link? (worked... I clicked on it)

Naughty words blurred out in order to keep this blog work-safe (also, I don't want coal in my stocking!).

Posted at 01:56PM Dec 21, 2006 by Catherine Helzerman in OddBits | Comments[0] Tag it: