While there were many new gadgets that surfaced at CES, none were as eye-catching as the bright pink Barbie Digital Nail Printer by Mattel.  This cross-over gadget brings modern technology to the tweens and teens of the world.  Targeting the girly market, the Barbie Nail printer hooks up to your PC and enables you to print designs directly on your nails!  Use one of the 1000 Barbie designs or upload your own. You can even size the designs to fit those tiny little nails with the help of a built in digital camera that displays your finger on  the screen.  And while designed for ages 8 and up, I would not be surprised if this this girly-girl beautronic device ends up in homes and home offices around the world.

Then this conference is for you!  Check out BlissDom '09.  The conference that was developed by bloggers, for bloggers.   Do something special for yourself. Mingle and learn - from writing to social media...and best of all...meet people who share your passion for blogging.

Even better...Jen Lancaster is the keynote!  So you know you will laugh.

P.S. A Must Read: Bitter is the New Black

...and I am not talking about the trees that line the memories of my childhood.  This time, I am talking about an open-source software infrastructure for implementing "cloud computing" on clusters developed by some wicked-smart university students and their professor over at UCSB.  

EUCALYPTUS stands for Elastic Utility Computing Architecture Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems – and its HOT.   You gotta love the humor and creativity in the name.  But even better than the name is what it does.  EUCALYPTUS enables all sorts of people - developers and students alike - to experiment with cloud computing from the inside.  It even and allows you to look down from the application level to the hardware.   And while most students are sunning themselves on the beach during the summer, this gang just released version1.1.

To learn more, check out this talk from Velocity last week – where academia spoke with corporate america.  And to the gang at UCSB, don't forget to stop and smell the "Eucalyptus"...you deserve it.

Someone asked me the other day “who is the audience for your blog?”  I responded quickly...”Audience?  Its a blog for goodness sake. This is not a marketing campaign.”  But after my flippant response, I realized there was goodness in that question.  In fact, people want to know what you are talking about.  I claimed early on that this blog would be about software, Sun, people and fashion...not a likely combination, but one that works for me.  So my blog got an update this weekend to help give rhyme and reason to this loosely coupled gathering of thoughts.

P.S.
Thanks GC

Does this sounds familiar?  Don't pretend like it doesn't

Your child wants a Wii.  You buy it for him (but secretly you want it for yourself.)  You slide in the sports package and you start up the tennis game right away...I mean come on...you've played tennis....and you are going to show your kid a thing or two.  You play best of 5 and the games goes for hours.  You laugh.  You sweat.  You even try to bowl.

   

And then the next day comes....

You roll out of bed only to realize you can't move your right arm.  The pain is searing through your lats, your biceps and your shoulder.  You can't even reach over and turn off the alarm!  Did you sleep on it wrong?  Were you struck by the shoulder disease over night?

Then it hits you – was it the Wii?  Can you really be that sore from playing a video game?  Even worse, can you really be that out of shape?  So while I am not 15 anymore, thanks to the creative genius of software, for one fleeting Saturday afternoon – I felt that way again (and felt my real age Sunday morning.)  Advil anyone?

Just like with my phone, I need to change my mac's wallpaper on a regular basis.  Check out these wallpaper designs from VLADSTUDIO....and smile.

Check it out!  InfoWorld talks about ZFS and takes and in-depth look at the unique features that make up ZFS and why these make Solaris so valuable to the enterprise. Additionally, the reviewer praises Sun for making ZFS available through open source. No fashion commentary here...other than “fabulous!” 

Want to never age?  Want to be forever captured in a permanent state of existence? Just want an icon of yourself?  My creative, charming, cutting-edge (and even sometimes controversial) friend and co-worker introduced me to the coolest site: iconizeme.  Send in your picture and an artist (a real artist) will create a rendering of you – to be used throughout your electronic world.  You choose the style and artist – they create “you”.  What a wonderful way to bring color to our lives.