General

Now this is a customer support nightmare.  Makes me want to never buy an HP product again.

I just subscribed to Phil’s weblog.  He’s got some seriously cool ideas on using blogs for system communications.  I’m looking at doign something similar for my websites.  Hmmm..    Ideas, ideas, ideas.

The CIO of Utah gets it. Surprisingly cool find: the weblog of the CIO of Utah, Phil Windley. Seems sharp and generally clueful, as evidenced by Blogs for System Status Communications:

My organization operates hundreds of servers in several data centers and a network that connects over 250 separate locations. One of the problems we have is status communication to various interested parties. Tonight I decided we should have a system status blog that uses categories with separate RSS feeds for various severity levels and systems. For the low price of $40/year we could have:

• One easy spot to post status announcements, which would be ordered in exactly the right way.
  
• A web-based record of status.
  
• Multiple RSS feeds of the various systems and severity levels.
  
• Easy integration into the personalization feature of our intranet; RSS feeds would show up as gadget boxes for people who want them.
  
• The ability to easily subscribe to RSS feeds and digest them in various ways for people with special needs.

How could you not like that?

[jarretthousenorth News]

This looks like a seriously cool game.  I gotta toss mulch on 7/4 though.

The United States Army is releasing their own game, this Independence Day – an interesting campaign to influence players (kids I presume). It is called America’s Army , and on the 4th, it can be downloaded from http://www.americasarmy.com/ — It uses the latest Unreal engine, which I presume means it will be worth checking out. [kuro5hin.org]

Update: Make sure you check out the commercial for this game. Somewhat disturbing knowing the Army is serious about this shit.  [Adam Curry: Adam Curry’s Weblog]

Adam is the man.

Time for another chronicle from the trenches at MTV. A couple weeks ago I saw an tv ad for the broadways production of Jekyll & Hyde that starred Sebatian Bach. Imagine that! Closer inpsection indeed revealed that the fair-haired banshee rocker from Jersey had gone ‘legit’ 🙂  [Adam Curry: Adam Curry’s Weblog]

Awesome recap of this year’s action on the US Supreme Court.

Court Had Rehnquist Initials Intricately Carved on Docket. If there is one phrase that best describes the Supreme Court term that ended late last week, it is this: the triumph of William H. Rehnquist. By Linda Greenhouse. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

I heard JPW speak once.  Sounds like a cool guy.

Barlow is amazing.  I spoke to him once when I came across his website where he posts his cellphone number next to the statement “call him anywhere.” I was intrigued, but skeptical.  I had read once that he did not have an unlisted number, and didn’t try to hide from people.  One night I was working late and got bored so I called him on a whim.   He answered the phone himself.  He was at the counter negotiating with a ticket agent, but he talked to me for about 5 minutes.  Very pleasant.  I asked him if he didn’t get a lot of useless calls (like the one I made).  He said, “no, you’d be surprised.  Most people won’t bother you, and I like to be accessible.”  Lyricist for the Grateful Dead, and founder of the EFF.  What more could you want to accomplish in life?  [Ernie the Attorney]

Tolkien Rocks.  I have to wait only another 5.5 months to see this!

…and only two more days til I have broadband. Trailer for The Two Towers is available online at Apple. Iâm pleased to see itâs available as a direct download and not just as a stream. Of course, downloading is going to be slow in any format until the broadband guy shows up· [jarretthousenorth News]