I finally had an excuse to try Skype, and wow …

If you’re like me and you travel a lot, install Skype on your laptop. Using a web connection and an inexpensive headset (or USB phone), one may call anywhere in the world for rates which are amazingly low (as in free if you phone another computer).  Here are two other rate examples (24×7):

• USA to Czech Republic: 2 cents per minute
• USA to any phone in the USA and Canada: $30 per year – unlimited calls

The quality was high, and full duplex. I now understand why college kids were plugging their USB phones into computers at the Krakow internet cafe last Fall. If lugging around a laptop is not your idea of fun, you could wi-fi enable a PDA and use it to read email and make phone calls from almost anywhere! Talk about a small, and inexpensive footprint …

This blog, eContent, focuses upon knowledge management and digital content for engineers and technologists. The issue of DRM and how it affects all digital content, not just music, is huge. Knowledge at Wharton (the business school) just published a podcast where two professors discuss the implications of this issue and Steve Job’s call to the publishing industry to drop DRM. Be aware that Job’s public request may not be that altruistic!

• A World Without DRM (Knowledge at Wharton)
  • Web Page
  • Podcast
  • PDF Version

Where is your favorite Hoeg stuck?!

A very large blizzard has "struck" Minnesota …

• I’m stuck in Morristown, N.J. till Saturday afternoon
  >> How do you spell kindness? It’s spelled DeBary Inn. This year, I’ve started staying with Anita and Hill Rose at their Bed and Breakfast Inn near Morristown (our HQ). Even though their Inn is full tonight, when my plane was cancelled for today, they gave me one of the family’s bedrooms!
  .
• My middle son is stuck at Wartburg College
  >> His Winter vacation was supposed to start today. The Winter part is correct, but he is definitely not coming home today!
  .
• My wife is stuck in downtown Minneapolis
  >> My wife leads Information Technology for the Star Tribune. When the blizzard and a huge project hit at the same time, she got stuck in downtown Minneapolis. She did not get home last night (only six miles).

Very early this morning (5:15 a.m. Minnesota time) I attended a panel discussion in SL (Second Life). The early hour was due to the fact that the target audience was Europe.  PA Consulting brought together a number of companies including BMW, Vodafone, and the Financial Times. These representatives spoke about their experiences in SL, and answered questions (within SL we could IM the moderator).

As many folks have probably never experienced SL, I’ve attached a Powerpoint file with 12 screenshots from the the event.  The file is "read only"

Most panelists were in SL as an experiment, and were not yet doing formal product testing, recruitment, etc. My host however, PA Consulting, has private islands where they are running sims for customers to test product concepts.

For those of you have never seen a wolf in the wild, take a moment to view these links. You’ll begin to understand the majesty of my home region, Northern Minnesota. Although I’ve never seen a wolf pack take down a moose, I have seen wolves attacking deer in the wild. Just remember, this is the natural state of events. I’ve also attached a photo of my own northwoods cabin. One must snowshoe in one mile on a logging road at this time of year. Enjoy!

• East Pack Kills a Bull Moose:
  • Photos and Essay
  • Quicktime Movie
    (click to direct view … or right click to download … view expanded!)

For those of you who want some leisure "non outdoors" entertainment, NPR just started podcasting excerpts from two of my favorite shows:

• Car Talk’s Call of the Week (Click and Clack)
• The News from Lake Wobegon (Garrison Keillor)