Educate yourself as an entrepreneur

There is an ever growing ideal in business and higher education. "Collaboration and open source" The internet is helping drive this by making it easier to share and access info. A great example of this is Stanford's "Educators Corner". What they've done is open their doors for to the general public and are offering many, many videos from lectures that were given at Stanford. Plus, they free! So check it out and see what some of the world's best are learning at Stanford.

Bayern Baby..Lust auf Bier?

Bayern Baby: "The mother load!!"

German Weekend Photos

Well, last weekend was pretty crazy and long. I think it took me till Wednesday to recover.

If you want to check out photos from the events there are some good ones online:

New York Steuben Parade and Party: Netzwerk Central PA
New York Steuben Parade and Party: Netzwerk Philadelpia

Oktoberfest at the Lancaster Liederkranz: Netwzwerk Central PA

O'zapft is! 174th Wies'n is under way...

Today the 174th Oktoberfest, the world's largest Folks Festival, started with the traditional tapping of the first key by Munich mayor Christian Ude. This year it took him 3 hits, his record is two. When the mayor proclaims O'zapft is! (It's tapped!) the Oktoberfest has official begun. (Click on the link to watch this years opening. Real player will open.)

Dollar In The Toilet -- Euro, All-Time High Against Dollar

Wow! The dollar lost more ground again. Even to the Canadian Dollar!

1Euro= $1.40
1Pound= $2.00
1Can.Dollar= $1

The 1=1 rate with the Canadian Dollar hasn't happened since 1976! Authorities are calling it a logical reaction to the Feds dropping the interest rate half a point to 4.75%. Boy I hope they're right.

Read more about it from the NYTimes

Good thing I get paid in Euros. ;)

Localization project

Woohoo!
I've been working on the end of this localization project for a Software company in Germany. I got the job from this guy Joe, who incidentally has gone of the deep end.
Anyway, I am basically finished now I just have a few question that need the company to answered. Mostly just abbreviations that are specific to the software. So, in the morning I'll plug them into the table and be done with it. ;)

I was rocking today with the translated too. I did something like 12 lines in the excel sheet where everything is. It's in an excel sheet because it is from the database that runs the software. Anyway, I was flying....

Then tomorrow it's on to the next project.

Man in China dies after three-day Internet session

Check this out. Could it just be propaganda? Or can people really die from internet use? Maybe the Chinese government needs to implement the "Twelve-Step Program"?

Mon Sep 17, 6:08 AM ET

A Chinese man dropped dead after playing Internet games for three consecutive days, state media said on Monday as China seeks to wean Internet addicts offline.

The man from the southern boomtown of Guangzhou, aged about 30, died on Saturday after being rushed to the hospital from the Internet cafe, local authorities were quoted by the Beijing News as saying.

"Police have ruled out the possibility of suicide," the newspaper said, adding that exhaustion was the most likely cause of death. It did not say what game he was playing.

China, worried about the spread of pornography and politically incorrect content, has banned the opening of new cybercafes this year and issued orders limiting the time Internet users can spend playing online.

In April, President Hu Jintao launched a campaign to rid the Internet of "unhealthy" content and make it a platform for Communist Party doctrine. -From Reuters

Where in the world is Bryan Coe

This weekend is going to be a busy one. Where you can you find me?

Friday: A group of us are heading to Liederkranz in Lancaster to the Oktoberfest. A far cry from the real deal in Munich, but it should be fun.

Saturday: It's off to NYC for the Steuben Parade. It's a celebration of Germans in the USA. Don't know who Steuben is?

Sunday: It's back to the Liederkranz with my German group Netzwerk Central PA

Then Sunday night I have an open mens indoor game at Lanco. Field House.

See if you can spot me! ;)

Vive le Bleu!

The fall season for indoor started last night. I'm playing on the same team as last year. The brilliantly named. The Blue Team

We had our first game last night. We won 10-2! It could have been a lot worse too. We kind of let up in the second half. Hopefully we're on our way to another championship!!

Coed Indoor

We had our first game of the for coed indoor tonight. The team is a little bit different this session. We lost a couple of players and be picked up a great player: Aki. (Japanese woman) She scored 2 or 3 goals tonight.

The league is an open league and we are probably the oldest team. Everyone is over 30 and a couple of us are in their forties. Tonight we played a team that every player was in their early 20's. And we beat them! 8-5! Woooohooo! I guess our experience out weighed their youth. ;) Haha

It felt pretty good. Hopefully we can keep it up the whole session.

the blackberry helmet

Do they have one for Pocket PCs?

RETIREMENT FUND

If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.
With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1000.00.
With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.
If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, You would have had $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It's called the 401-Keg Plan

Yahoo! Go 2.0: A Big Disappointment

Like many people in business I have a smart phone. I don’t have a blackberry, instead I have the 8125 pocket pc from Cingular(now AT&T). The phone is a life line for business. It keeps me connected at all times where ever I am. I have my work email as well as a personal account set up as an IMAP accounts. The IMAP accounts are configured to automatically check for mail and notify me when I receive anything new.
However, my primary personal account is a Yahoo! Mail account. I use Yahoo! Mail suite for a lot of things including business. The suite includes a calendar, notes, tasks and an address book with options to enter email addresses, phone numbers and snail mail. I use the calendar and tasks functions for personal as well business. With Yahoo Go 1.0 I had live access to the full suite anytime anywhere and it synced directly with my phone.

For months maybe even close to a year, I have been using Yahoo’s service called Yahoo! Go 1.0. The service was great, because I was able to sync my calendar, notes, tasks, email and address book directly between my phone and my Yahoo! account. The software could be configured to periodically check for new email, and functioned like a POP3 or IMAP account. Plus, when it checked for new email the other functions were also synced on the fly. Pocket PCs have the ability to sync with MS Outlook, but this can’t be done on the fly like Yahoo! Go 1.0 worked. So, Yahoo! had me using their email service almost exclusively for my personal mail, appointments and for the address book.

Unfortunately this service has recently been discontinued and replaced with a new service: Yahoo Go! 2.0. The new service is blotted, slow, cumbersome and isolated. You can no longer directly sync anything with your phone. To check my mail I have to log into their slow memory eating software. Then navigate to the mail function and manually check my email. There seems to be an option in the mail settings called “Push email”. I’m not sure where it is “Pushed”… certainly not my phone. There is another setting called “Message alert”. Again, I’m not sure what the function is for as it isn’t notifying me when I receive a message. I still have to load the software to check mail. Granite the Cingular 8125 is not the most powerful phone on the market anymore, but the Yahoo! Go 2.0 software is so buggy that periodically when loading it will freeze the phone and reset the time and date to May 2000. Incidentally the phone is only 1 year old. Furthermore there doesn’t seem to be anyway to turn off functions that I do not use. (Unless I missed something.) I have no need for entertainment news, sports news or flicker. Yes, they may be interesting options and many people may use them, but why can’t the user streamline the software, so it only loads the functions they want?

Yahoo! is seemingly trying to emulate the functions of the iPhone. That might be a good idea if the software was integrated into the phone. Right now, that is definitely not the case. Yahoo! Go 2.0 has been such a disappointment for me that, after using Yahoo! Mail as my personal account for many years, I am considering, moving to another account that will directly sync with my phone. I don’t have time for blotware, as it slows down productivity and causes more headaches than it is worth. I sincerely hope that Yahoo! realizes what functionality is really important to their customers and adjusts it’s strategy accordingly.

-From Blackbird e-Solutions: e-Life

World Population

Check this out:

World Population

Doonesbury

Smoking ban in Germany

"A new smoking ban has come into effect in Germany. Smoking is now banned in federal government buildings and on all forms of public transport. However smoking is permitted in designated rooms or marked areas in some public transport facilities. Violators face fines of up to 1,000 euros. There's still no agreement among Germany's 16 states on a smoking ban for restaurants or pubs. Meanwhile, people under the age of 18 are now banned from purchasing cigarettes. Up until now, the legal age had been 16." --Deutsche Welle

Man if the Germans can do it. Why can't we get a ban in PA....