I love the auction site flippa.com. I usually browse it every so often as a marketplace for websites. I just was reading their newest blog post:

Record Sale on Flippa – Retweet.com Sells for $250,000

And it reminded me of an article on TechCrunch a while back about how they were so similairly designed to tweetmeme and how they might be getting into legal trouble. I would hope the auction winner would be privy to that info prior to the purchase, but I am assuming the retweet camp did not disclose that. In fact, the actual retweet listing does not mention anything about tweetmeme. There are few commenters that ask, but no response from the Retweet.com team…

Anyway, I hope the auction winner did their research and will actually monetize on it

I am so happy about this. I can’t wait to be able to watch Slingbox over 3G after the new app gets approved:

http://www.mobilemag.com/2010/02/04/att-allows-tv-on-the-iphone-through-slingplayers-mobile-3g-application/

I am lagging, really, really bad. I have been busy trying to coordinate the launch of a new DRTV product that the company is buying media time for. Setting up IVR, fulfillment, and web sales has been a monumental task that is making me work 16 hour days. I do see the light at the end of the tunnel as the deadline to launch is February 11 (coinciding with the Daytona 500 media spots). So after February 11, I will have time.

Now I have to fill out the app without the proper amount of time and dedication I wanted to meet the deadline…

After reading this article in TechCrunch about The Founder Institute, I am definitely going to applying to the Spring 2010 in Los Angeles. I am so excited that a mentoring program like this now exists in the LA area. I have talked about this problem before with Andrew Warner who says finding a tech co-founder is the hardest thing to do: most people get lucky and meet up in college or (in his case) his tech co-founder was his brother. Now I got to beef up my Linkedin profile and think about how to approach the application. Their FAQ says they are only accepting 40-50 applicants so it seems pretty selective. I hope I can stick out from the rest…more to come.

Well I guess Bill and I now have another thing in common: we now both active users on twitter…

I’m following him just to see what he says

@BillGates

One of these popped up at my local CitiBank ATM in Woodland Hills, CA on December 6, 2009. I would have never known about it if I wasn’t browsing Hackernews and came across a post on Krebson Security:

Would You Have Spotted the Fraud?

It’s a little too close for comfort knowing some jerk might be stealing my card information by doing a routine activity like withdrawing money AT the bank. I don’t think twice when I hand my ATM card to the teller, but should I? If they can’t actively detect and remove a device like that, I don’t know if my money should stay there. I don’t have an account there, but my Dad does and said they sent him a new ATM as soon as they found out about the breach.  I am not an electrical engineer, but that device must somehow broadcast a signal and transmit information (which should be checked for by the employees on a daily basis). Anyone want to start a ATM skimmer detection company?!?

Well although I probably don’t have many listeners out there : ), I thought I might update you on the clear hiatus from blogging, tweeting, and general ramblings from me.

Since my last post in August,  I have been helping my girlfriend launch her business: The Danica Group. The Danica Group is  a importer, manufacturer, and fulfillment house for promotional products.  My job has basically been technology consulting (Quickbooks, warehouse management software, etc). She has several large clients (one of which I would like to tell you, but I am under a NDA not to say—it’s a very popular up and coming yogurt chain; we will leave it at that). So after helping her start it up, the work has paid off and now I am free to go…Thanks Danielle

Anyway, I have been working so much with her over these last months, I have not sent a single tweet or status update anywhere. I basically cut out the most enjoyable part of my day and replaced it with work. I kept up on TechCrunch, Hackernews, and Socal Tech as best as I could, but I definitely haven’t been immersed in tech as I was back in August (and for the first 23 years of my life).  I will start up again, just give it some time.

And the biggest shocker of them all: I dumped Sprint and moved to AT&T and the iPhone. I had to give in to the hardware over the service. It was a constant debate in my head, but after my long and drawn out ambivalence over AT&T being married to the iPhone, I gave in. AT&T service sucks compared to Sprint and I get 5X more dropped calls on AT&T, but I am willing to suffer for it…Yes, it’s that good. However, I really appreciate Google’s attempt to change the cell industry. With the Nexus One’s open wireless service provider choices, my dream might be near when kick ass phones aren’t locked into a shitty network **COUGH**AT&T – iPhone**COUGH**

Till next time, thanks for reading : )

Update: I forgot to tell you the secret with getting out of Sprint’s ETF fee. The thing is thats its only valid for your Sprint bill in January. Read up about it here. Someone even created a no-ETF script for you to use with customer service on SlickDeals.net. Here’s Sprint’s official fee changes (that just so happened to be adversely effecting my account)

According to this lifehacker
article, all you need to do to trick Gmail into not having sponsored links
in your delivered messages is to add the line:

I enjoy the massacre of ads. This sentence will slaughter
ads without a messy bloodbath.

And it works, see the screenshots before and after using the
sentence. They also mention how “Joe McKay writes about his experience in
blocking Gmail‘s sponsored ads
using words referencing tragic or catastrophic events (which Google bans from
their ads) as well as words from George Carlin’s infamous list of seven words
you can’t say on TV.”

So without dropping the f-bomb and the use of the simple
sentence, you should be able to send sponsor-free emails (until Google rethinks
things).

This has got to be the stupidest thing ever reported on. Who
cares that some food critic is finally revealing their face?

I don’t think I am going to read the Daily
Beast’s Cheat Sheet anymore if this stuff comes up.