Coming out of the darkness by electing a darker skinned president

For the first time in many years, the United States actually did something right!
Electing President Obama today is one of the bravest smartest things this country could have done. I believe that by electing this talented African-American individual president, America just bought itself another substantial period of time as the world's greatest country. A country with a lot less prejudice.
Today is the happiest day in the last 15 years.

Greasemonkey goes Chrome

Related to one of my previous posts, Garret Rogers reveals today that Google Chrome open source version (Chromium) has added a very initial support for Greasemonkey.
I think we all know where this is going. Greasemonkey is about 50% of what I need in order to switch to Chrome with all my heart and soul.

I had this period when I was using Chrome primarily, but I finally caved back into the convenience of Firefox extensions and user scripts. Not even the Chrome amazing speed can beat some of those excellent additions you find out there. The thing that tipped me over eventually was Ubiquity.

At this point I'm using Chrome for office related activities (Gmail, Calendar), and trying to use firefox for everything else - which is kind of hard since all links in my Gmail open up in another Chrome window.
I'm also worried about the Firefox folks, who I thought were good friends with Google. If Chrome supports all the plugins and extensions, why would anyone use Firefox.

I, for one, vote for a Firefox browser with the Chrome engine.

...and one more - watch the first, then the second

Sara Palin - Oh dear...

Shana Tova!! !!שנה טובה

To all of our friends and family around the world:
Shana Tova! (Happy Jewish New Year)
May all your wishes come true this year.

Merav, Itai, Elad and Liam Raz

לכל משפחתנו וחברינו,
שנה טובה!
שיתגשמו כל משאלותיכם, חוץ מאחת שלא יהיה משעמם.

מירב, איתי, אלעד וליעם רז

Google Chrome - I'll switch in a second, if....

Excellent Browser. Ultra-fast. Really really really fast. Very friendly. Of all the browsers out there, largest amount of screen real-estate for what you really need (i.e. web pages...).

But,

If they don't put in the ability to have extensions, and in particularly if I don't get to use my firebug, greasemonkey, possibly better gmail 2, I can't abandon Firefox. I really want to, but can't. Too much missing.

Now, I'm sure technically it should not be that big of a deal, being that all websites that work on Firefox seems to work flawlessly on Chrome.
So - guys, pick up the envelope. You know what? I'll make you a deal - just greasemonkey, and I make you my default browser. OK?

For those of us who can't write "Chrome" in Google - here's the link http://www.google.com/chrome

a leading global provider...

Did you ever notice that every company, as small and insignificant as it may be, is always a "leading global provider" in some area? Kind of takes the sting out of being the real leading global provider.

In fact, if you need to tell everyone that you are a leading global provider, then it's most likely you are not one. I wanted to research this point a bit, so I went on the AT&T website and looked for the word "provider". Sure enough I found that AT&T are a leading worldwide provider of IP-based communications. Now, I knew that AT&T are global leading providers of telephony, cellular and many other things, but IP-based communication? That's not what I had in mind.

This kind of brought me to the conclusion that "global leading provider" is actually a synonym for "the PR department was instructed to push us in this field, since we really need to become a significant player in this market"

My new Idol

I just lost a bet to my wife. We were watching TV the other night, and I was telling her that something (can't remember what it was) reminds me of Shai Agassi. She asked me who it was, and I was shocked that she had never heard of him. I then told her that he is the center of he buzz around green technology, and that he is probably as famous as Brad Pitt, and that everyone know who he is.
My wife started laughing and made a quick round of phone calls to friends and family only to prove me dead wrong. None of the women knew who he was. A few of the men knew that he was a famous entrepreneur. One guy actually knew that he working on the electrical car vision.

So, please, if you already know who Brad Pitt is, and the name Shai Agassi kind of rings a bell but not really, go check out his wonderful performance on the Brookings institute panel. You'll learn that if you buy a car today in Israel or Denemark, you're likely to have to dump it in the trash in 2011, because everyone would be driving electrical vehicles for free by then. God willing.

AXIOM

I just cleared my spam box. 40 messages since this morning (yey, Google)

Allow me to suggest an Axiom:
You will never (NOT EVER!) find a good deal marketed through spam-email campaigns

Anybody cares to disagree?

Free Entertainment

The next time you find yourself bored, looking for something interesting to read or do, I highly recommend going through the "legal threat" section of the piratebay.org website. I swear it is absolutely hilarious!!

For those you not familiar - the pirate bay is one of the largest infringe-ware websites in the world, allowing you to search through millions of torrent files and downloading copyright infringing material such as music, games, videos, etc (you download it from other peers, not directly from their website, and that's what may protect them legally). Without going into whether that's OK or NOT, I guess one interesting point is that the pirate bay consistently claim that they are not breaking any laws, since they're hosted in Sweden "land of vikings, reindeers, Aurora Borealis and cute blonde girls" (quote) oh, and also the land of "sane copyright laws".

I'm gonna quote some of their response as teasers, but you really must go there and read for yourself.

To DreamWorks lawyers: "As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States"
"It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are ....... morons, and that you should please go s**** yourself with ..." (cover your ears)

To EA: "Hello and thank you for contacting us. We have shut down the website in question. Oh wait, just kidding. We haven't, ..."
"Please don't sue us right now, our lawyer is passed out in an alley from too much moonshine, so please atleast wait until he's found and doesn't have a huge hangover..."

To WB in response to them asking them to remove all links in the search result here: http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=billy+corgan: "Sorry, but I can't remove search.php - our users would get upset if TPB suddenly lacked a search function. "

Bookmark it and read when you have a minute. Entertainment guaranteed.

Google Health

HIV Positive? May we suggest this great cocktail, which will extend your life two weeks longer than the competition can!!
I couldn't help it, but this sort of imaginary ad was my first response to Google's new health service. I'm a huge fan of Google, and half my life is stored on their servers - be it all my business emails, my calendar, all my notes, some of my documents, and even files. I'm very small on big brother conspiracy theories, and I think anyone can get your information unless you make extreme-almost-unreasonable steps to protect it. I even use clipperz for storing most of my passwords "online" (read the service description - it's not that simple).
And still, after I logged in, and the site suggested it would automatically access my records in my doctor's clinic, just like facebook offers to access my gmail account to look for friends - that really did make me feel uncomfortable.
When you come to think of it, since a lot of health services in the country have all your information exposed online for your convenience, Google can be no different. In fact, I believe that the folks in Google, on average, are better programmers than the rest of us, and so your information there is likely more protected than your information on your health-service provider's website (if you've had the luxury of working with an IT department of some health service providers, you may actually be getting a weird itch right about now). But, giving access to your medical records to an organization with a business model that relies for the most part on being able to provide personalized ad-serving, still somehow gives me the chills.

Anyways, who cares what I think. Enjoy the service.

Am I spending too much time on the Internet? (Virtual Bonfire)

My wife was talking to my son the other day, telling him that on Lag-Ba'omer, I'll be going with him to his school bonfire party, whereas she'd be taking his younger brother to his own school's bonfire party. The idea behind telling him that in advance was some setting of expectations, since our kids are used to the family sticking together on such occasions (or, if nothing else, at least stick with Mom. Going with Dad without Mom can be regarded as some sort of punishment).

In any occasion, the goal was to make him feel comfortable about this in advance, so Merav went on to tell him how much fun it was going to be, and knowing that he likes doing outdoor activities with me, also told him that him and me would probably be going out to look for burning material - such as wood in its different forms. She used the word "search" - search for wood.

Well, my 6 year old, hearing the words "search" and "dad" in the same sentence immediately came to the right conclusion and asked (very seriously) - where would Daddy be searching for wood - on the Internet?

Got GA

I added Google Analytics code to my blog today (not that you'd care).
Used an excellent post from Andy Wibbels which took me step-by-step through it. I love these posts for dummies - they work great for pseudo-professionals like myself.
It also seems like Google Analytics is going to be inherently supported in blogger, but right now it's just private beta (don't you just hate how they get a blog before they even release a product for general availability?)
Don't know about you, but I'm still excited about being able to get all of this nice software for exactly $0.00.

חופש הביטוי

בימים אלה יש רעש גדול בעקבות פיטוריו של העיתונאי שלמה מן ממעריב. מן, שהסתתר מאחורי הכינוי ייגרמייסטר, כתב בלוג שבו ביקר את כתיבת עיתוני הספורט בישראל. קצת מצחיק, בהתחשב בכך שהוא עצמו היה עיתונאי ספורט של מעריב. האיש טוען, ונראה שיש לכך סימוכין, שכתב תמיד באופן אובייקטיבי וביקר גם את מעריב, ובאופן מצחיק גם את עצמו, אם גילה טעות לאחר שכבר פורסמה . כמו כן הוגשה נגדו תביעה ע"י אתר One (אתר ספורט). האמת שאני לא מתעניין בספורט, אלא אם אני עצמי הספורטאי. אבל יש פה משהו מדאיג מאוד אם עיתונאי כבר לא יכול לכתוב דברים אובייקטיביים לכאורה מבלי שייתבע ויפוטר ברגע שמתגלה זהותו. עוד משהו מדאיג כאן היא חשיפתו של מן, שנהג להסתתר מאחורי שם עט. למי שמבין די ברור שזה בטח לא מאמץ פשוט לחשוף מישהו בנבכי האינטרנט ללא צו שופט. ישנן טענות לכאורה להתנהלות בלתי חוקית של אתר One ומפעיליו בניסיונם להוציא את "ייגרמייסטר" מאנונימיותו. מכל מקום, לא נעים בכלל. יש כאן הרבה עניינים של הגנת חופש הביטוי, ובכלל נשמע ונראה מוזר כל ההתעסקות של העיתונים בסגירת פיותיהם של מי שמעזים לבקר אותם. מי שמעוניין לחתום על עצומה שכמה בלוגרים, מן ביניהם, הקימו יכול לעשות זאת כאן: http://www.atzuma.co.il/petition/themis/1

Hebrew in Gmail

Final Update, Sep. 12 2008: Google now has the new RTL button right there at the top of the email body section, rendering this script completely obsolete. If you're still using this script, or are now downloading it, consider looking for those buttons I just mentioned. Many thanks to everyone who downloaded, used, commented, became fans of, reported bugs and cursed me quietly when the script didn't work.
I'll be seeing you next time that the RTL user community is neglected by Google ;)
--itai 

Do you speak Hebrew or Arabic? If not, this blog wouldn't be all that interesting. Ever since Google came out with their new UI, it has been virtually impossible to write right-to-left emails (Hebrew, Arabic...). Extensions that were written for firefox to bring out the direction buttons became non-functional, because those buttons did not exist in the UI. When I found out this week that the Google guys actually bothered to write inherent Greasemonkey APIs, I figured that it wouldn't be all that difficult to write an extension that will enter right-to-left text in your email's body. Those of you who know a bit of HTML probably know that switching direction has become a piece of cake in recent years. So I found this signature script, that seemed to be doing something similar to what I had in mind. I modified it to become Heb4Gmail - a Greasemonkey extension that will insert right-to-left text into your email, allowing you to write nice Hebrew or Arabic emails. It even works great with mixed sentences (Hebrew and English together). If you use Gmail, and you write Hebrew emails, I think you'll find it useful. If you don't know what Greasemonkey is, or you don't use firefox, this isn't for you (but you're missing out on all the fun). Enjoy. Download it here: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25811

I'm back on windows...First Episode

A couple of months ago, due to various reasons that I will go into on another post I had to go back to using one of my old laptops (Pentium M, 0.5G of memory). Former one was monster Dell with 2G of RAM, dual core 2.something GHz and 7200RPM disks, so I figured this new-old one was going to be a nightmare. I therefore decided to pursue any geek's dream and install a Linux OS on it. Since I have customers and projects that still require C# programming, I thought I'd go for dual boot, unless I can make it work on mono (yet another subject for another post, but bottom line - I don't think you wanna go there...). Last time I worked on linux it was when Redhat was still freely available and no Fedora. This time I went for Suse 10.3. I put the CD in, it recognized all of my devices, including the wireless network during the installation, which allowed it to download updates and a couple of hours later it was all done with.
Oh--MY--GOD. I was very impressed. So easy to install. Like always, everything that I needed already installed (from Office to Gimp to Eclipse ). It took me another 30 minutes to find out that whatever I didn't have installed already, I could use the most impressive YAST tool to automatically get - I swear it's easier than windows, and certainly easier than it used to be on good-old Redhat.
Then I went on to install XP. First mistake. Trashed my MBR, no going back. But wait - all the posts I read said having a dual boot with Suse is a classic. Ah, OK - they said you need to install XP first, then suse. Why on earth would that matter? Well, when I did it the second time, I understood.
Disk reformatted. XP was installed (terrible experience - had to download half the machine drivers from Dell. Shame on you M$ - Novell Suse had it all figured out, no intervention required). Then I put in the Suse disk. BAMMMM! It comes out with a message saying something like "Knock knock Neo, you seem to be installing on a machine that already has windows installed on it. Allow me to suggest the following - I will shrink the windows partition to 10G out of the available 40, then format the remaining 30G for myself, and install Linux there. How about that? Oh, I will also automatically map you windows disk on the linux OS and call it... Windows"
Amazing. What's even more amazing is that it managed to do it perfectly.
Also - Suse met all expectations, and actually performed faster than my Windows was performing on the former monster laptop. What a pathetic comparison, I know...

Anyways, this post is episode 1 and since it is named "Back on Windows", you'd have to now wonder with all the great things I have to say about Suse Linux, what can happen in the next episode. Since I have no time left, I promise to write the next post soon (but not right now). Anyways, if there's one thing you're going to take from this post - remember to always install Windows first on a dual-boot machine - and then install Linux. Oh - and format Windows to FAT32 not NTFS.
That's it. Catch you later.

The SSEWAM Strategy

It's 1998 all over again.
Though the markets are a lot more sane, there's still a lot of money going around, blowing up the valuation of startup companies beyond any proportion to their potential value. Other phenomenas include companies that would not have gotten a dime out of VCs two years ago suddenly securing a few million dollars so they can continue being opportunistic and seek out a real business plan.

I developed a theory about companies that you want to stay away from, at least as an employee or partner (if you're a VC, no need to read on - VCs have other considerations in their agenda many times). It is just a rule of thumb theory, and every rule has its exceptions, but one thing I learned from recent bubbles is to stay away from any company the follows the SSEWAM strategy. Don't Google for it - it's a term I just made up.
SSEWAM stands for Someone Stupid Enough Will Acquire Me.

Ever met a company with such a strategy? Sometimes they wouldn't flat out spell it, but you'd be able to tell it's a SSEWAM company by the explanation you get from the founders on how well their idea fits with the strategy of X company (say, Google). Another thing that you'll sometimes get from these guys is a bunch of examples on latest acquisitions that were done on companies having similar idea/business.
What would be most suspicious is when you get that kind of answer as a response to a question like "how will you make money?". Simple question ain't it?
I say, if you can't give me a straight 30 seconds answer on how you're going to make money, it means that you're still struggling yourself. The worst is to ask the "how will you make money" question and get back a response saying "what are you talking about? Just last week Yahoo acquired FoxyTunes for $XXXM, and our product is even better".
Not buying it (and neither is Yahoo). A company cannot have SSEWAM as an exit strategy. If you cannot explain how you're going to make your business successful on its own, how you're going to build a product or service, and sell it while making a profit, then guess what - Yahoo wouldn't waste what's left of their money on you.

In short, my friends, when you start your companies, make sure that someone will pay you money for using your products (and no, VCs don't count as someone, unless you just built a product for managing VC firms). Your company as a whole is usually worth nothing, if you can't sell your products, and even make profits from it.

Just my take.