James Tauber's Blog 2004/10/23
Blogging and the Personal Brand
Recently, Doc Searls made the observation that the companies known for their brand don't have nearly as many bloggers.
I was all ready to embrace this meme that blogging and branding were opposing when I stopped and thought—hang on, Tom Peters blogs. Tom, more than any other person taught me the power of the personal brand.
Then it dawned on me. Blogging builds your personal brand. Perhaps people that (are good at or want to) build their personal brand don't sit well in companies that have a strong corporate brand.
UPDATE (2004-10-26): Well it looks like Todd Sattersten agrees with me but Doc Searls doesn't. Doc dislikes the notion of a "personal brand" but I agree with everything else he says in his comment so maybe he doesn't mean the same thing that Tom Peters does.
by jtauber : Created on Oct. 23, 2004 : Last modified Feb. 8, 2005 : (permalink)
Film Project Update: Second Rough Cut Done
I've completed a second rough cut of Alibi Phone Network. I found that doing a left-right flip of shots removed the crossing-the-line issues. It introduces some continuity problems but they are far more subtle than the effect of crossing-the-line.
After completing the rough cut, I showed it to my family. I'm very proud of the film - from the script to the performances to the look to the pacing.
Remaining tasks are:
- a few sound effects (shower noise, cell phone ring, beeps on voicemail)
- voice of a maitre d' on the other end of a phone
- little bit more audio normalizing
- finish scoring
- sync score
- minor colour correction
After that we'll start submitting to festivals.
by jtauber : Created on Oct. 23, 2004 : Last modified Feb. 8, 2005 : Categories filmmaking alibi_phone_network : (permalink)
Amazon Recommendations and Self-Hosting
While reading blogs this afternoon, I found out about Guy Kawasaki's new book The Art of the Start. So I went to Amazon.com to order it and, lo and behold, Amazon was already recommending it to me on the home page as a new release I might like.
I confess to being somewhat of an Amazon recommendation addict. I'm highly motivated to inform Amazon of all my book purchases (the 30% I don't buy from Amazon but instead buy from the Dymocks at the mall near my house in Perth, the Barnes and Noble near the office in Boston or at various airport bookstores I hang out at frequently).
But as you know, I'm also interested in hosting my own data (see aggregation versus hosting). I'm always on the lookout for ways I can take back my data, host it on jtauber.com and provide it to aggregators rather than have to host it with them.
So that's got me wondering about the books-I-own being stored at Amazon. It's somewhat of a duplication, because I have a barcode scanner and maintain my own book catalog (with data, incidently, retrieved from Amazon web services). I've not checked yet, but I wonder if Amazon will let me import the books I own so I can maintain the authoritative list and, in the words of datalibre, "Write Once, Read Everywhere."
Of course, that then leads me to Amazon wishlists. Could I self-host my wishlist without losing the huge value-add of Amazon keeping the wishlist updated based on what others have ordered for me?
by jtauber : Created on Oct. 23, 2004 : Last modified Feb. 8, 2005 : (permalink)
Apple Build Numbers
Can anyone explain to me the build numbering system Apple uses for OS X?
I'm currently running 7M34 (more commonly known as 10.3.5)
There is a list of build numbers here that confirm that the first number is the major release):
- public beta is 2...
- 10.0 is 4...
- 10.1 is 5...
- 10.2 is 6...
- 10.3 is 7...
- 10.4 is 8...
But when does the following letter get increased? Even the final number doesn't seem likely to go up after after every build judging by how close some of the numbers are between successive minor releases.
Any readers know, or at least care to speculate?
UPDATE (2004-11-02): The Tiger developer preview that was just announced is 8A294. So they are still on the 'A' series of 10.4. I wonder when they start 'B'.
by jtauber : Created on Oct. 23, 2004 : Last modified Feb. 8, 2005 : (permalink)