I've been getting lots of spam from different companies using cvent.com email services. So I just called cvent at 866-318-4358 and asked for their Chief Privacy Officer (CPO). The woman on the phone was very elusive, and asked if she could remove my email from their list. When I said no, I wanted to speak with their CPO, she instead gave me the email address privacy@cvent.com. I asked if their CPO had a name. She covered the phone receiver and I could hear her whispering to someone next to her. Then she said "Dwayne Sye". I asked if he had a phone number, and she said she could only give me his email address. Hmm.¶10:35 AM

Two initial thoughts about Chrome:

1) Google has more infrastructure than Akamai. Imagine what Chrome browsing will be like when Google gives Chrome-only access to a cache of the web which is stored within a couple hops from your desk. Neither a Firefox p2p cache nor Microsoft would have any chance of competing with that speed.

2) It is interesting to see the amount of energy and venom people put into finding and reporting problems with new products from Google (and other successful companies). Why are people surprised to find bugs in beta software? And do you think that Google (for example) is not quick on making bug fixes? The alternative is "old school" tech companies who spend so much time "perfecting" new products that customers don't even get to give input on them. No thanks for those days.¶9:48 PM

I'm going to create bumper stickers which say "McCain/Bush for President".

¶9:48 PM

Someone should put boston.com out of its misery. How is it possible that the New York Times has not yet laid off every employee at boston.com, and replaced it with a clean and functional website -- like nytimes.com -- without all the annoying popups and animated ads.

At a minimum, boston.com should just use Google AdSense for relevant text ads, and then just publish Boston Globe stories. The site then might become usable. (And boston.com could probably do a staff reduction since they would not need a team to manage the annoying online ads.)

Just now I had to go to boston.com for the first time in months -- to lookup a death notice. Boston.com can't even get this right -- see the layout of the screen here.¶2:03 PM

I used to be a HUGE fan of Obama. I had never before been so interested in national politics. I love his message of inclusion etc.

But once he had beaten Clinton, Obama started to pander to the "mass market".

First, when he reversed his position on telco immunity. And now he is reversing his opinion on offshore drilling.

Maybe this is "what is required" to win in a nation of idiots who watch Fox TV.

But I've become disillusioned.¶12:44 AM

I wonder why gmail Contacts feature is so slow.

It used to be fast. But then some gmail programmer did a "fancy version" with ajaxy stuff (oh so 2008) and yet, as is the case with most software, this "fancy stuff" actually deteriorated the software performance (and thus usability).

Given how obsessed Google is with performance monitoring, it makes me wonder what about the gmail team lets that bad programmer get away with such a crappy rewrite?

I would not be surprised if there were something dysfunctional about the gmail engineering team which allowed that programmer to get away with this. Perhaps the Contacts coder has a Big Title (/arrogance) and is left alone by a weak manager.

Wdyt?¶4:42 AM

iomega sucks. I bought an iomega nas drive. The CD did not work on Mac. Fine. So I haul out a Windows PC. Then the install does not install the "discovery tool" to find the device on my LAN. Each time I launch the install tool, it tells me my iomega software is out of date, even though I click to install it each time. Of course the install *requires* that you register with them. And, check out this crazy font they are using for their legal agreement -- unreal!¶2:23 PM