This just struck me as funny. Apparently Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of Virgin Atlantic and a myriad of other businesses got so flustered during a taping of The Colbert Report that he actually threw his water on Stephen Colbert. It sounds like that episode will never air, and that Branson is scheduled to re-tape his segment at a later date.

Saw this great parody of Microsoft’s new Surface Computing initiative over on Merlin Mann’s Tumblelog. Great stuff!

Warning: high nerd-factor humour here:

This trick with 3 balls and 3 cups is incredible, but only because it goes so horribly wrong and the trickster wigs himself out so completely. Priceless!

Having played beer league hockey (adult recreational hockey, for those of you wondering) for the past seven years, I believe I’ve discovered the key to having fun and feeling like your skills are growing as a team. It’s not something that you might expect, but I think the logic is foolproof.

Wanna hear it?

Here it is: Have a crappy goalie.

I say this because for the past seven years, I’ve played on a mediocre (at best) team, with an exceptionally good goaltender. We’ve had a couple of different starting goalies in this time, but they’ve been pretty consistently good. Better, in fact, than any of our competition.

But here’s the thing. In any sport where there are a lot of teams, they get divided up into divisions based on skill so that the competition can be kept fairly even. The only real way for the league to determine the quality of a given team is to look at their record, particularly wins vs. losses, and goals for vs. goals against.

In hockey, the position of goaltender is key to a team’s success - at least as much so as a quarterback is key to a football team’s success. So if you happen to have a very good goalie, as we have had, you will find yourself in close games with teams that should be beating you handily. This means that you end up playing against teams that have better speed, puck handling, and positional play compared to your team, but you (at least sometimes) have a chance of winning those games when your goalie is able to stop all of their chances, and you capitalize on one of your few chances against their much weaker goalie.

This sounds fine, but the reality of it is that your team ends up controlling the puck much less than the other team, and therefore your offensive hockey skills as a team don’t grow nearly as quickly as they otherwise could. Keep in mind that beer league hockey teams don’t hold practices (at least ours doesn’t).

Now consider the same team, but with a particularly weak goalie. You’d end up in a lower division, playing against teams with much less overall skill, since they’d still be able to get enough goals on your weak goaltender to stay in the games. But overall, your team would control the play far more, get more offensive opportunities, and likely grow offensively much more as a team. You’d probably get better defensively as well, since you’d be compensating for a terrible goalie.

It’s taken me seven years to figure it out, but I think the way to consistently have fun in beer league hockey is to have a relatively poor goalie. Which sucks, since besides being very good, our goalie is also a great guy.

Tags: hockey, beer league, beer league hockey, recreational hockey, goalie, goaltender, playoffs

I was quoted again in an article on Computerworld’s website regarding the performance of Outlook 2007. While the spirit of my comments are fairly accurate, there are a few inaccuracies in the article, and some relatively harsh words were used to describe things that I know I used softer language on. I’m sure this falls under the heading of creative license, but it makes me come off as sounding somewhat harsh towards a couple of Outlook add-ins that I love.

Here’s the section I contributed to:

Jason Clarke, who works in the technical sales and marketing department at Wenco International Mining Systems Ltd. in Richmond, British Columbia, receives about 100 e-mails daily. He said that on his PC, Outlook 2007 “hangs completely for three to seven seconds typically, and up to 20 seconds in worst cases when new mail is being downloaded.”

Turning off Outlook add-ins that he has installed, such as ClearContext Corp.’s e-mail management software and Caelo Software Inc.’s Nelson Email Organizer, “does improve matters marginally, but not nearly as much as it should,” Clarke said. “The hesitation is still very noticeable — jarring even.”

Clarke, who oversees Wenco’s e-mail system, has posted information about Outlook’s slow performance on his personal blog. He blames the problems on the new e-mail indexing engine that Outlook 2007 shares with Windows Vista.

The indexing allows searches to be done almost instantly in Outlook 2007, a vast improvement over Outlook 2003. However, the process also appears to be CPU-intensive. Microsoft recommends that users put indexing on a regular schedule instead of letting it run constantly in the background.

Now, I just want to point out that I consider ClearContext and Nelson Email Organizer to be essential Outlook add-ins, and made the point in my email to the author, Eric Lai.

Also, between the first time I spoke with him back in November for an article that came out in December, and now, I have a completely new job, albeit at the same company. I can assume some blame for that, though, since there’s no reason to think that within a few months someone would change positions. But I feel weird about it nonetheless.

For what it’s worth, here is the content of my email to Eric. To preface it, Eric linked to a few complaints about Outlook 2007 performance on the web, and asked me whether I thought the complaints were legitimate. Here is my response:

I’m struggling with how to answer your question; I’ve read the links you provided below to some of the user complaints with Outlook 2007, and while I’m certainly frustrated with the product’s performance, I’m not having the same kind of trouble these users are complaining about.

I actually wrote about my frustration with Outlook 2007 about a week ago on my personal blog in a post called Outlook Slowness. My complaint is weak compared to the others you referenced; I’m basically saying Outlook 2007 is mildly better than Outlook 2003, but that I’m using a faster PC so it’s not really a fair fight.

The specific performance issue that I face is that Outlook hangs completely for 3 to 7 seconds typically, and up to 20 seconds in worst cases when new mail is being downloaded. Turning off the Outlook add-ins that I rely on
(ClearContext and Nelson Email Organizer) does improve matters marginally, but not nearly as much as it should; the hesitation is still very noticeable, jarring even.

After testing Microsoft’s desktop search product (the one that Outlook 2007 nags you to install), I came to the conclusion that it is inferior to many of the other similar free products that are available (like those from Google, X1 / Yahoo, and Colibri), and removed it from my system. But it’s worth noting that anyone that is using a desktop search product to index their email for faster searching is likely to see a noticeable performance
hit.

I’m still running Outlook 2007 on a Windows XP system. I should note that when I tested it using the exact same PST file (email catalog) on Windows Vista, I found it to be noticeably snappier. Some of the enhancements that
have been made to Vista allow Outlook to load in a few seconds after a reboot, whereas on XP it can take Outlook up to 30 seconds to become usable on the exact same system. Unfortunately, I haven’t used it enough to comment reliably on the actual email download hesitation problem. In fact, I’m dying to do exactly that and see if I can ease my pain.

For people that are frustrated with Outlook’s performance, Brad Meador at ClearContext posted a fantastic tutorial for ensuring the health of your Outlook mail (PST) file. At one point I was experiencing a significant overall Outlook slowdown, and following Brad’s advice helped matters greatly.

I hope this helps!

One last point I should make. I’ve put a lot of time and energy into Outlook over the years, so it may come as a surprise to some of my readers, but I finally found the ultimate solution for it. A Mac.

That’s right; I had the opportunity to choose a new laptop at work, and decided to get one that would simply help me get things done, rather that having to muck around with every last little thing. For the moment I’m using separate Gmail accounts to manage both my personal and work related email, and finding the experience very enjoyable. Gmail excels at handling very long email threads, which is something that happens in my work email very frequently.

Beyond that, I may give Apple Mail a try as an offline email client. So far I haven’t felt the need to. And it would be disingenuous of me not to admit that although I’m operating most of the time in Mac’s OS X operating system, Intel-based Macs do run Windows fine, and I have a Windows instance available to me whenever I need it. In fact, that’s where I keep my archive of emails from before the point where I decided to switch to Gmail, and it works just fine.

So, I’ve given up on Outlook for day to day work. But if you want to or have to use it, do check out Clear Context and Nelson Email Organizer. They both have the capability to supercharge the way you deal with your email, and both work fine for me under Outlook 2007. And although I do have affiliate links for both of these software packages, you’ll note that I’m not using them here. I truly think that both of these software packages are worth your time, and I don’t want you thinking that I got paid to say so.

Tags: Computerworld, Eric Lai, Outlook, Outlook 2007, Outlook slowness, Clear Context, ClearContext, NEO, Nelson Email Organizer, Mac, OS X, Gmail

This is a video that lists some amazing statistics and predictions based on the current rate of change in the world. I first saw the video at Marketing Pilgrim, and a quick browse through the comments there will find you this link to the originating website, where you can download the original PowerPoint slides if you’re so inclined. There are also references to most of the claims made in the video in subsequent updates to the original post.

Karl Fisch is the original author of the “Did You Know” presentation, and he has chosen to license it using the least-restrictive Creative Commons license available, which I believe allows you to republish his work as is, or even use it as part of another creative work, with no attribution necessary. (I could be wrong about that last part).

Anyway, take five minutes to expand your mind without the use of a mind-altering substance, other than knowledge. Okay, that was ridiculously cheesy - but the video is worth it.

Tags: Did You Know, Karl Fisch, PowerPoint, statistics, predictions

I just saw this sidebar item on TSN’s site called “When I was 19″, which compares Sidney Crosby’s numbers with those of Wayne Gretzky the year he was 19, as Crosby is now.

I knew Crosby was special, but I didn’t realize just how special:

Sidney Crosby is tearing up the NHL scoring race with a healthy lead for the Art Ross Trophy. See how the phenom’s torrid pace compares to that of another superstar who had similar numbers when he was 19.

Sidney Crosby (2006-07):
57 GP, 26 G, 70 A, 96 PTS
Sidney Crosby (On Pace):
79 GP, 37 G, 98 A, 135 PTS

Wayne Gretzky (1979-80):
79 GP, 51 G, 86 A, 137 PTS

Holy crap.

Tags: hockey, Gretzky, Wayne Gretzky, Crosby, Sidney Crosby, TSN

The only problem with this video is that the hockey player is actually taking an interest in baseball. Otherwise, it’s hysterical:

Thanks to my buddy Brad for the link.

Tags: hockey, goalie, baseball, shortstop, Canadian, comedy, funny

Francesca, my wife, decided to write me an actual note on paper tonight while she was at her micro-economics class. Hell, if I was taking micro-economics, I’d be looking for some way to waste time too. Anyway, here’s the full content of her note (with permission, of course):

Dear Jay,

I feel like chatting with you - but I don’t have email or IM in this class. I guess I’ll have to resort to a good old note. Funny - I don’t think I’ve written a note in class in a very long time!

So… howz it going - damn! This is different than IM.

Yep, that’s it. The whole thing. And, to be honest - I know exactly how she was feeling.

On another note, during this particular class, Fran mentioned that they received their marks back, and overall the class did not do too well. When the time came for a break, everyone heads to the cafeteria to get a coffee or something to snack on - when she arrived there were about ten people from her class, all mumbling angrily into their cell phones. Fran commented that this is an interesting societal change we’re seeing; 10 years ago (and probably even less), those angry students would be talking to each other, commiserating about their marks and possibly even planning study sessions. Today, none of them even know each other’s names.

As someone who is a huge technology enthusiast and supporter, I find this sort of trend troubling; I’m not sure we as a society gain enough from online interactions to counteract the negative influences, like this one.

Before watching this video, if you’d have told me that I was going to see a guy playing the flute and it was going to be cool, I’d have laughed in your face. I’m not much of a fan of the flute. This guy, however, has surprised me. Make sure to watch the whole thing, as it gets better as he goes.

Hat tip to LifeDev.

Tags: beatbox, beatboxing, flute, flautist, beatboxing flute, beatboxing flautist

Clearly I’m not the only person in the world that has experienced slowness in Microsoft Outlook; “Outlook slow” is the second most searched-for phrase that leads people to this site, behind “eye twitch”. I have to say that although I’m somewhat happier with Outlook 2007, it’s still not as good as it ought to be. In fact, on a daily use basis, I find Gmail is noticeably snappier.

This includes when I shut off the Outlook add-ons that I have come to rely on; I know that adding things on to an application that I find to be already somewhat slow isn’t all that smart, but there’s no way I’d live without ClearContext or NEO Pro, never mind Anagram.

And in terms of Gmail, it’s not like I don’t add functionality on there too; using greasemonkey, I’m able to add on saved searches, added hotkeys and even conversation previews. But the speed difference is still somewhat astounding.

Although I’m comparing Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2003, I have to keep in mind that I’m using 2007 on a faster computer that has a true dual-core processor. So in fact, it’s probably more than likely that Outlook hasn’t gotten any faster at all between the 2003 and 2007 versions.

The worst slow-down I experience is when Outlook is actually checking my POP mail account, which is the only way that I actually receive email into Outlook. The problem is FAR worse if I’m checking multiple accounts, but it’s really bad even with one, particularly when there are a lot of messages to download. I can’t for the life of me figure out why such a modern application can’t handle the rigors of checking mail, something that email clients have been doing forever.

Colour me frustrated.

Drop me a note if you also have trouble with Outlook slowness, and if you’ve had any success speeding it up I’m all ears!

Tags: Outlook, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook 2007, Outlook slowness, Outlook slow, MS Outlook, email

I know, I know… I’m all about the embedded music clips these days. I’ll get over it and start posting more tech-related content again. But for the moment, take a look at (and listen to) this guy, Reggie Watts.

Tags: Reggie Watts, beatbox, beatboxing, vocals, music, looping