Category: History

The Resurgence of Email

Business / Email / History / Technology

With the recent example of Amazon’s AWS service arbitrarily killing a business’s website by revoking the company’s hosting contract, the question must be asked – If a service provider can suddenly decide to not provide you service, how can you continue to reach your audience? The short answer is one of the foundational elements of the internet – the original POP… Post Office Protocol. Email. POP servers have (and are) a staple of the internet. They deliver (most) user verification and forgot password emails. They notify people of …

Seattle Waterfront Handcar

Business / History

With the very sad demise of Seattle’s Waterfront Streetcar, and the extremely unlikely chance that it will ever come back, as the removal of the Alaskan Way Viaduct will cause waterfront condo prices to skyrocket, I have an alternate idea to bring a bit of Seattle’s railroad history back to the waterfront. This idea is part history, part touristy. Manually operated handcars along the remaining track along Alaskan Way. Most people don’t know that Alaskan Way use to be the domain of the railroads – in fact, it …

Bodie Foundation fundraising idea

Business / History

The Bodie Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit organization that helps Bodie, California. As a California State Park, Bodie just doesn’t get enough financial support to properly and effectively keep this historical gem in tact. Over the past 20 years State funding has drastically declined and the need for donations has become a requirement just to keep the park open. Several times in recent years Bodie has been on the ‘closure list’ – a list of State Parks that would be temporarily shuttered in an effort to reduce costs …

Interactive Movies…

History / Marketing / Phones / Software / Technology

In the 1950s there were 3D movies, Smell-O-Vision theaters and CinemaScope. The fad of 3D movies has come back around in the past few years, but I suspect it will go away again. So, what’s a new fad that has yet to come around? How about interactive movies? That is, mobile-enabled films… Movie theaters are using ultra-high-end digital projectors more and more these days. Those projectors are connected to hard drives. Those hard drives are connected to the internet. That means it would be pretty easy to deliver …

Streaming media and home entertainment…

History / Microsoft / Phones / Software / Technology / Video

I’ve recently helped a few friends get setup with "media centers" as their home entertainment systems. They’ve all been centered around using a small form-factor computer to ‘power’ things, and central to that is Microsoft’s Windows 7 and Windows Media Center. I was lucky enough to be a software tester at Microsoft around 2001 testing the first version of Window Media Center Edition (MCE) and it was exciting back then. It’s now been 10 years – and it still hasn’t caught on. But, I’m confident that’s about to …

Historic ‘micro-blogging’! Secret inscription in Lincoln’s watch…

History / Technology

Wow!! How exciting, that a watchmaker made a ‘micro-blog’ in 1861 on the INSIDE of President Lincoln’s pocket watch! Of course I’m joking about the ‘micro-blog’, but it really did make me think about how people are posting on Facebook and Twitter so much. Unlike most of those pointless ‘posts’, THIS was something worth "Twittering"! Here’s the text of the Reuters article: WASHINGTON (Reuters) Mar 11, 2009 – A gold watch owned by Abraham Lincoln bears a message marking the start of the U.S. Civil War, but the …

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