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[3] 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: