Test successful.

If you don’t have your cable/DSL modem an router on a UPS, maybe now is time to consider it? -m

Update: The developer tool is live. Rasmus has a nice walkthrough.

P.S. Mark my words, more news is coming…

1. That’s not a potato, it’s a misshapen rock.
2. Unexpectedly flammable tennis racket.
3. Sparks landing on gas can.
4. Food poisoning via undercooked hash browns due to limited flame contact time.
5. Broken plate fragments.
6. Dripping, flaming gasoline.
7. Swing and a miss; balance lost.
8. Flaming potato fragments in the eye socket.
9. Diving catch ends badly.
10. Spontaneous combustion.
11. Tennis elbow.
12. Repetitive stress injury.
13. Fork misfire.
14. Heat death of the universe.

(17 if that fork is a dangerous crossbreed) -m

Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them…

The prescient Vannevar Bush, who foresaw (among other things) the importance of hyperlinks. -m

Even these early stories are filled with mind-blowing premises, which are only just the beginning before things get really weird. Highly recommended. -m

WIth this, I plan to turn off my landline, to the tune of about $35 a month, and by not using our mobile phones for so much long distance, reduce the calling plan for another $40 a month. The one-time cost for the box set me back about $231, so I will be even in just over 3 months. (Only recently, these things were retailing for $599.)

How do these guys stay in business? I’ll write more about this too, but the short story is that bandwidth is really, really cheap, monopolistic efforts of telecom companies notwithstanding.

So far I’m really happy with it. The online Ooma Lounge isn’t as good as Vonage’s system–for one thing, you can only see voicemails, not any kind of call logs. But the features that are there Just Work. The documentation is short and simple but thorough. Setup was a breeze.

Have you tried Ooma? Comment below. -m

Blogging is an important skill, a subset of the overall skill of managing your online persona, so it’s worth devoting some attention to. The ego-burst doesn’t hurt either. My concrete goal is to get in the top 10 search results for the query [Micah], though I face some stiff competition including the prophet.

From an SEO perspective, “Push Button Paradise” wasn’t the greatest choice of name. It suffers from the common SEO mistake of being excessively clever and/or cute reflection of what I happened to be working on at the moment, namely XForms. If you see the old name standalone, or in a blogroll, or in an RSS reader, you still don’t have much of an idea what it’s about or who’s behind it. True I get pretty good ranking on the exact phrase, but nobody searches for that…

I will continue SEO tweaks on this site as time goes on and welcome any advice from any of my 7 readers.

In short, Micahpedia is about what I’m reading, writing, thinking about, and working on. I have plenty to say about these things. :-) The best is yet to come. -m

Simon St. Laurent

-m

• Be patient. If you insist on having something today, know what you want and be prepared to pay for it.
• Never disclose your deadline.
• Cultivate a positive relationship with the other party.
• Don’t make the other side look stupid (for a prolonged period of time).
• The best negotiators talk only 40% of the time.
• The most intimidating thing you can do to someone trying to intimidate you is to not be intimidated.
• Never be the one to make the first offer.

The most critical aspect of negotiation is the opening offer. Four opening gambits are possible:

1. Lowballing. Offering substantially less to create psychological downward pressure on the price.
2. “Up against the wall.” Forcing the other side to make more concessions than you do.
3. Anchoring. Having both sides make equal concessions.
4. “The Kiss.” Like anchoring, except allowing the other side to take one final (often minor) concession.

If you want to find out what Leo says about how to buy a car, in 5 minutes, below dealer cost, you’ll have to pick up the book though. :-) -m

But what happens when a company is generally aware of the Innovator’s Dilemma and tries to compensate? It seems like second order effects might come into their own. A product widely known for being (and remaining) minimalist is exposed to attacks from deliberate enhancements and related complexificaiton of competitive products. As the market gets more mature, the steadfastly-simple market leader gets left behind. In a sense, it’s a role reversal from what Clayton Christensen describes. But can it work out the same in the end? Please comment. -m