An article over at Information Week details the court case between an open source developer and someone who violated their copyright. Check out the article.

I'm particularly impressed with the rulings reasoning, specifically:

There are substantial benefits, including economic benefits, to the creation and distribution of copyrighted works under public licenses that range far beyond traditional license royalties. For example, program creators may generate market share for their programs by providing certain components free of charge. Similarly, a programmer or company may increase its national or international reputation by incubating open source projects,

As that is exactly one of the reasons why I've released some of my products free. It is nice to see that the court system is taking on the open source legal questions and, for this ruling, seems to be siding with the intellectual property owner's rights instead of those who wish to violate those rights.

Score another one for open source!

There is a bill which passed in the US congress which is H.R. 5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008. I'd contacted my congressman about the bill and my concerns over the bill. I've received a reply which I would like to pass on here:

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So ... I suggest people start getting familiar with the copyright office...

WOW - TODCon slipped by so fast ... it is over too quickly...

Anyways, this year we had an incredible line up of speakers, a bunch of wonderful attenders and the usual great time at the after events (i.e. dinner!). Florida is still hot, wouldn't mind it being a lot cooler, but that just isn't in the cards in June when you're in Orlando FL.

Some of the regulars didn't make it this year and they all were missed. We also had some new speakers who were standing up getting it done. Got to chat with a couple of the new speakers (Denise and Estell) and they are really cool people, hope you get a chance to meet them!

Best session (I went to...) was Derek's - he dressed up in a "Jedi" outfit (ok, it was a brown robe, but in context, he was a Jedi!) and I also picked up info from the other sessions I attended. The conference was great - you should plan to go to it next year - start saving today!

Ok, I'm in Kansas and I thought we're pretty good with online business tech stuff - I have to file, monthly, on my income, etc. I can do this online which is quick, convenient and saved me a stamp and a check (EFT payment). Now, I'm no fan of taxes, but it is the law and not paying is more painful than paying, so I've been faithful to make the payments every month before the due date (errr.... on the due date) and get the yearly required paperwork in too. Each transaction has a confirmation ID and each monthly form is stored, electronically, on their site. I can see that I've paid for the entire 2007 year, have everything filed, etc...

However, today I get a call from the Kansas Department of Revenue - I wasn't there, so I call back when I get in. It is a long distance call and they are only open from 9am to 5pm. I have voip service, so I dial away. I'm put on hold. (insert elevator music here with brief interruptions telling me how important my call is to them...)

Mike answers the phone, I chat a little letting him know why I'm calling, give the case number and wait. He asks some questions to make sure I'm the right guy (you know, that hard to get information, like the address of my business...) - after he's certain I'm not some stranger calling to make good on a government debt for someone else, we proceed to figure out why they called....

"Sir, we don't have your filing for all of last quarter no the payment for the last quarter either"

I'm a little shocked, I know I paid, I saw the money leave my account, all he can tell me is I need to get the right paper work in. They do have my yearly, which has the exact details for my monthly, but we won't go there - having the government actually make the connection between the yearly and monthly reports is asking too much. I mutter something and then get off the phone. By this time, I've loaded up the Kansas on-line payment system and just got to the section about my payments. I call back.

May answers the phone. I give her the details like I did Mike. As we progress, I tell her I've got the electronic confirmation numbers for the payments. I give those to her. She says she sees them, but she can't open them (huh?) and tells me I'm late and fees are assessed , which I suspected, and that, if those were the reports, I'd need to call someone else to get it figured out. Oddly enough, they know I did make a payment and they know that the payment made matches the figure they said I didn't pay in December. Again, this is a leap they cannot grasp. I'm given another long distance number to call.

Kevin answers the phone. I tell him the issue and he's able to figure out that, yes, I did make the payments and yes, the confirmation numbers are for the transactions I said they were for and, yes I filed on time. However, he can't do anything about it. The money was credited to the first quarter 2008, mind you, we're not allowed to file for the first quarter until it is over which is in two weeks. I need to call someone else and, yes, it is a long distance number again. I need to call accounting and tell them that Kevin in the electronics division said it was OK and verified the payments (and since there is only one Kevin, I think they may check on that). See, someone in accounting mis-keyed the information in to the wrong area. Several thoughts went through my mind, but the ones I can print involve:

• Why am I fixing this problem? I did what I was supposed to do.
• Why can't the revenue department open the confirmed electronic transactions?
• Why can't Kevin call accounting himself and fix the issue?
• Why can't Kevin just fix it himself?
• Why couldn't May or Mike have called Kevin and then accounting to fix the issue?
• Why couldn't May or Mike have fixed this themselves?
• By the time this is done, I'll have spent more time resolving their foul up than the entire bill is worth
• When I screw up, as they thought and billed me for, I'm charged, who pays me for their screw ups?

In any case, I had to leave for an appointment before I could call accounting, something I'm "looking forward to" the same was you look forward to a root canal. Luckily, they will find in my favor and reverse the charges and all, but, man what a waste of time...

Free, I like free. I use free stuff all the time. Firefox, Filezilla, 7zip, and Thunderbird every day, for example. My server is on some flavor of GNU/Linux with Apache, phpmyadmin, Horde, mySQL and PHP (which also includes, I’m sure, TONs more software). I have a Yahoo, Hotmail, Myway, Gmail, and AOL free email address. All of those have a variety of free to them, some are open source free (GPL, for example), some are closed source free, some are just used for free (like Google, for example) where there is no source to see. Now, with open source, it is more than mere “free” software – it carries a philosophy with it, that software should be free. The preamble to the license includes:

The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users.

Now, where this all gets ironic is the drumbeat for donations. I have several extensions I use in Firefox and a couple of them make heartfelt, earnest pleas for money, after all, they spend considerable time creating the software. If I visit open source software sites that aren’t currently backed by a commercial company, 90% of the time they are asking/accepting donations (if the product is any good and widely used).

So … which is it? Is it free or do you want money for it? I find it odd they would choose an open source license and then cite their time, effort and hard work that goes in to making the software work for reasons people should donate. If they want money for it, they should simply charge for it; if they want it to be free, really free – including “guilt free” then they should list it under an open source license.

Here is what I think has happened. They started a project as they though “hey, such-and-such application does that, it shouldn’t be that hard, I can do it” and then they wrote a proof of concept and it wasn’t that hard – maybe a month or even a few months of dedicated work on it. They are still in the excitement phase of a new project; the buzz from making something work is fresh in their minds. So they see all of the open source applications and how everyone just gets all giddy over them and elect to release the code in open source format. They have something that works and they release it at sourceforge and, then, someone else starts using it – but they find it doesn’t work right. So some bug fixes come in. The programmer, who has a family, life and such, continues to take time to make the fixes work. Some one else adds code to make it do something else, so the programmer adds it to the application and this keeps up for a little while. The novelty of the project is wearing off, it is becoming WORK. Bugs keep coming in, new feature requests and someone slams the project because their entire system crashed because of it (even if it is impossible, it just happened at the same time …) They don’t see a lot of help coming in, if any at all, and they see hundreds, if not millions, using their software and making money off of it – while the author is stuck making the changes and adjustments so the consumer can continue to make money off of it and the author gets??? They start to see the project as a time hole that sucks all of their free time making, fixing, updating and maintaining the application all without any compensation and decide that, maybe, someone will chip in some money to cover what they could be making if they were working on a commercial application or contracting.

The irony – they believe in free software as a philosophy, so strongly that anything that “touches” the software becomes free as well – but, not strongly enough not to ask for donations because they actually created the software.

So, for those open source author’s – put up and shut up or write commercial software, but don’t think using guilt, pity or such to garner donations is in the spirit of the open source philosophy. At a bare minimum, setup a license for those who want to contribute so that the viral nature of the GPL doesn’t apply to them and then, maybe you’ll get something for your hard work. When you give something away for free, people will value your work in to it as much as you’ve placed the value on the work (i.e. free). I know several projects I’d love to contribute to if they had an alternate license for those contributing – and several that I’ve actually given to, some from the value of the work to my business and others because it was way cool or had an alternate license.

OK, so I'm reading ALA (A list apart) on the latest new thing to come out of the web standards group, something Microsoft intends to implement in IEv8. One of the biggest issues we web developers face in developing web pages is the varied version of browsers and code compatibility. If you look at the offerings here at CMX, you will find, from time to time, articles that address this in some manner (as in, for IEv6, you need to include; for Firefox, include; for IEv7 do this and for IEv5.x, try this - oh and Safari v1, just give it up). The proposed idea is to implement a meta tag which allows you to specify the browser engine to render the page with - for example, if you specify IEv8, when IEv9+ comes out, it is rendered with the same, prior, version of IE, v8. The goal of the standard would also to be allow multiple browsers to utilize this same functionality so that Firefox, Safari and the rest could also use this to render pages in prior engines for their product line (so I could specify IEv8, FFv2 and Safari v3, for example). The implementation will look like:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />

The articles went on to talk about the prior attempt to have web pages rendered differently using the doctype declarations. Both articles are a good read (not so much on the comments to the articles). It is my opinion that this is a good thing. I believe it will allow us to create a work on the web and not have to freak out when the next version of whatever comes out, worried our sites will break. I also believe it will aid us in transition from one browser to the next. Likewise, I have a couple concerns as well - how well will the future browsers render prior versions? and if I have a site created for IEv9 and you have IEv8, what happens? The articles from ALA are:

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8
From Switches to Targets: A Standardista's Journey

Well, it continues to happen and I'm not surprised. This time an open source company, mySQL, is bought by another company, SUN. I am curious, given the open source product development, as to the profits. See, a long time ago I heard a proprietary software developer laugh at the open source movement, something like "Someone is going to make a lot of money off of that and it won't be the contributors". Well it seems those words came to pass. The owners of mySQL are raking in a fortune while those who made it happen (the little people) got to participate.

Compound that with companies, like facebook, which use open source tools, like mySQL and who sell parts of their company for millions - you've just got to wonder - how can I get a staff of people working for an open source project I own for free so that I can sell the company, who owns the main copyright of the open source project, years later for millions?

To the point of the purchase, I do wonder what this will hold for mySQL? What will SUN do with the project? Will it become like Red Hat's distro for Linux - all for profit entries with the source files for the distro off somewhere else? Will the pre-install licensing change? One thing is for sure, the mySQL is open source, so they can't change that - and it will still be widely used and installed for some time to come. I would love to see the database make it to the next level of maturity and include enterprise level functionality (beyond what it has now) that will make it a slam dunk decision for most applications. What I think would also be really awesome would be an application distribution, like MS Access, to bring it to the desktop or to be married to Java somehow and made inter-operable with the language! Now that would be cool!

Ok, so I'm curious about all the data services available for wireless internet access over cellular providers. I go looking around and, having worked with a telecom, I look for the "hidden" charges as I know it is their favorite thing to do, sucker you in with a "low" price and then - BAM - your bill is not what you expected. I was shocked at how brazen and, in my opinion, fraudulent these charges have become. In no particular order:

• AT&T
  • Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge $1.25
  • Federal Universal Service Fund 11.0%
  • State Universal Service Fund 4.99%
  On a $59.99 plan, you pay AT&T - $70.83
  
  
• Verizon
  • Tolls, taxes, surcharges and other fees up to 34%
  • Monthly Federal Universal Service Charge is 11%
  • Wireless monthly Regulatory Charge - $0.07/line
  • Monthly Administrative Charge - $0.70/line
  On a $59.99 plan, you pay Verizon up to $87.76
  
  
• Sprint
  • One mention of an 11% "fee" charge was seen
  • $1.55 in line fees
  Sprint hides their charges extremely well, so this number is probably lower than it should be - $59.99 plan, you pay Sprint $68.14
  
  
• T-Mobile
  • Regulatory Programs Fee of $0.86 per line
  • Taxes, tolls, roaming, and other charges (including Universal Service charges) additional. Not specified, but when I looked at an example bill (for $39.95), I found:
    • Federal Excise Tax - $1.25
    • Federal Universal Service fund - $0.62
    • State Sales Tax - $2.60
    • City Utility Users tax - $2.55
    • Local Sales Tax - $0.56
    • State 911 - $0.20
    • County 911 - $0.50
    • Regulatory Programs fees - 0.86
  T-Mobile - best I can figure - $59.99, you pay $60.85
  
  
• Alltel - they won't even give you a clue what they charge, but someone who posted a complaint said (on a $39.95 bill):
  • Federal USF - $1.79
  • Regulatory & Admin Fee - $1.15
  So, $59.99, pay Alltel a minimum of $62.93

I find it astonishing that the businesses are allowed to setup a binding contract (usually for two years) based upon a figure you pay per month plus an undisclosed figure that they change change without consideration to you at any time for whatever reason and, if you don't like it, they can stick you with a disconnect fee. This is a classic bait and switch tactic - and it is difficult to actually figure out what a plan will end up costing - all of the above are based upon estimates and vague legalese wording.

And the real irony of this all, cell phone providers are considered to be among the worst customer service providers in business, give consumers the worst contract deals and have less the stellar product offerings (dropped calls anyone)... amazing

As reported in the CMX Newsletter, an article about the IRS tax code delves in to the Section 179 deduction for office equipment. Reviewing the article, I found it to be a little simplistic and, perhaps, only accurate should you find yourself in the highest tax bracket - and a s-corp like you should be :). It also works for sole props and partnerships, but those are BAD business setups anyway. C-corps don't get the same complete benefits as an s-corp (due to pass through profiting), but they still benefit.

The basics of it is the government, in their infinite wisdom, decided that computers have a FIVE YEAR business life... FIVE YEARS (I had to repeat that because it is so ridiculous - the average machine from five years ago used 256 Megs of RAM, had under 100 gigs of HD space, was the first releases of the Althon XP or Pentium 4 series processors and ran windows 98, 2000 or the brand new XP (or NT, I suppose - we've had therapy to block out all references to WinME). The Mac's where still using Mac Classic 9.2 and OS X was released as OS 10.1). Personally, I upgrade every other year or about 18 months at the shortest. So I have a series of mothballed PCs that, if I sell or dispose of, I have to do some accounting voo-doo on to account for the Section 179 deducation. Having said all of that (after climbing down from the soapbox), the section 179 is a quick way to deduct what you spend this year on what you bought. While I don't grasp why the government does depreciation (I bought it, why do I have to deduct the cost over five years ... why can't I do the same with income...) - we really don't have much of a say on the matter. So, here is what you need to know:

• Deduct up to $25,000 in capital equipment purchases as section 179 deductions.
• Forecast your upcoming income verse your income this year - if you will be in a higher tax bracket (say you just started and you're in the 10% bracket and next year you'll be in the 29% bracket as you'll kick butt because you're a CMX subscriber and can get work done quicker and make more money) it may benefit you in the long run to deduct the income off of the 29% tax rate instead of the 10%. Simpler, if you have $1000 to deduct at 10%, you've saved $800 worth of income at 10% taxing or $80 worth of taxes; if you deduct $200/yr for 5 years, you pay that $80 the first year, but the next year you write off $200*.29 or $58 and again for the next three years ($58*4) in tax savings (so it comes to $232 in overall tax savings verse $80)
• Predict who will be the president in the upcoming election and their position on business and taxes, getting the money now may be the only time you can get it - or getting the deduction over the years should tax rates spike may have a better payoff.
• Check with your accountant on the ramifications of selling or disposing of any equipment purchased under the Section 179 category.
• Keep in mind, other equipment, like furniture, have longer depreciation times, some, like software, have shorter (although check to make sure you can deduct software under 179 codes, it seems to go off and on as to if you can or can't) when making your decision on if to use the depreciation or not.

The depreciation tax laws where originally developed in the 1950's, tweaked a few times here and there - clearly the manufacturing and technology systems have changed - no longer is everything built rock solid nor moves as slow as it was in the 1950's. However, the government remains the same, slowly changing. Perhaps the best thing, as a small business, you could do would be to lobby your federal representatives to change the laws to exempt small businesses (under $10M) from all depreciation and/or, just eliminate it all together.

Well, I was all ready to make a tutorial on how to make those cute little RSS feed icons - I was doing well, working in Fireworks, getting it done. Then I hit a snag, getting the arc to look right. I searched the regular resources for hints on how to get this done and one of them pointed me to a website. When I got there, I realized, this was the perfect solution. Unfortunately, it also made the creation of the icon moot - it was a free collection of PSD and other graphic formats of the icon all sized, colored and ready to go, even a grayscale copy of the image for customization.

Check out Feed Icons to pick up this handy little resource.

For those so inclined who would like to send a card (free) to the US forces in Iraq:

Thank you cards sponsored by Xerox

Seems Comcast thinks that they can interfere with your web usage on their network.  Apparently, if you have Comcast, you no longer are paying to use the bandwidth as you want - Comcast has determined various applications and services just aren't allowed.  Things like peer-to-peer file sharing, other VOIP providers, Lotus email and FTP.

So, if you have Comcast and you've been noticing things not working right, it isn't your computer - nor your browser (for once!) - it is your ISP meddling in what you are allowed to do.  Most likely they have a government mandated monopoly where you're at too, so you can't move to an ISP interested in just giving you service.  If you have Comcast, make sure you let them know you do not appreciate their business practice and, if you can, leave.

Comcast violates net neutrality with this move and if those with Comcast don't make it an expensive business decision, other ISPs may feel emboldened to do the same.  If they are taking an inch and not stopped, they will eventually make sure the only Internet service we get will be through their mutual business partners... 

PHP.net announced (a while back) that PHP 4 is at end of life and will end all support by the end of the year (2007). If you are still using PHP v4 and haven't considered an upgrade, now would be a good time to do so. PHP 5 has been out for years and it is stable and solid. Many applications are being written to take advantage of the new features in PHP 5.

They are promising security updates until 2008-08-08 on a case-by-case basis, but after that, it is all done. From a security standpoint, you have to upgrade before that as exploits beyond that point will not be fixed leaving your website and contents vulnerable to malicious attacks.

Good luck and start now so you can migrate safely before you are forced to because of security reasons.

This past Sunday, I peered into a world of the unknown, often unseen and clearly alien!

Where was I?

I was speaking at a conference for small boutique owners learning about web design and development.

It all started out when I exited my plane in Raleigh, North Carolina and made it to ground transportation for the shuttle to my hotel. Sparing no expense, we were staying at the Day's Inn at RDU. I saw the shuttle coming in fast heading for a lady with her bags a few dozen yards ahead of me. Not wanting to miss the shuttle, I quickly hurried to catch the shuttle before it whisked away with the lady and her bags. However, half way through hustling, I realized this was no ordinary lady. She was brightly colored, well matched and properly accessorized (watching What-Not-To-Wear has paid off!) with at least four bags, one of which was about half her size – I could go to a fast walk and she would still be getting situated. By the time I'd gotten to the shuttle, she had just finished chatting with the driver, who only managed to get one piece of luggage loaded. I plopped my bag down and climbed in. Suspecting she was here for the conference, she chatted for 10 minutes during the trip (this was her introduction – she is Penny) after which I asked “So, are you here for TJ's conference?” To which she was surprised that I guessed she was! Several minutes later, we were at Day's Inn. As I entered the lobby, I noticed a group of ladies, all brightly adorned and chatting away. There was TJ, sitting among them and she welcomed me to the fold. We were too early to check in, so we stayed in the lobby while the ladies chatted away. This was my first experience being in the midst of such lively chatters. One of the ladies commented to another that she does “Keystone”, I wondered – where is Keystone?

I hadn't eaten lunch yet and right next to the Days Inn was a Waffle House (hey, we were in the upscale part of town...) and Penny, myself and Buck went to the Waffle House for lunch. Buck was from New York and was there for his retail organization. Apparently, in NYC, soup spoons are critical to eating soup or chili, the Waffle House didn't have a soup spoon and much to the chagrin of Buck, he had to eat the chili with his regular teaspoon. Penny and Buck spoke a language I'd never heard before – talked about going Tribal and something about getting Spanx. Now, I'd thought perhaps I didn't understand these boutique shops or what went on in them – but again they talked about Keystone – and I wondered, do they get tribal in Keystone and spank? The waffles were pretty good and the Buck picked up the tab, making the lunch even better!

That evening, the planned event was a social BBQ for the boutique owners and a tour of the local boutique. We rode in cars on the way over, I called shotgun citing I was as large as the rest of the riders put together and needed the space. After the 20 minute trip, I can now honestly say I know how those who aren't ubergeeks feel around us ubergeeks (not YOU, US, as in the CMX people, you're just a normal geek) when we talk shop. The conversation went from having Tribal, again with the Spanx – on to kids, family, location and the vendors and then back to Keystone again. I wondered what was Keystone all about. One woman even said she does Keystone 2! I've not even found Keystone 1 yet or know what it is and she is talking about Keystone 2 – then, much to my surprise, Tee, the driver (whom spent more time talking to the back seat than looking forward) said she's even gotten up to Keystone 3. My mind was spinning.

We arrived a little later than the rest of the attendees, 27 ladies and 3 guys. I realized, rather quickly, I stuck out like a sore thumb – not only in gender, but in attire. I'm monochromatic gray (#666666 colored shorts and #CCCCCC shirt) – the ladies are all dressed in the fashion style they sell, all sorts of colors, patterns, design, accessories, jewelry, shoes and fully made over faces. TJ calls the group to order and the chatting stops. She introduces Terre and Buck and calls on one of the ladies for an invocation for the food. I spent the rest of the evening eavesdropping on conversations trying to learn what Keystone was all about.

On the drive back, the conversation takes off again. I'm navigating because we don't have instructions on how to return to the hotel. I'm guessing on which roads and exits to take while they continue the shop talk. This time, the chat was about the product types. They were talking about camisoles and how they worked in the stores. I learned that they are used for layering and how cheap they cost the stores. One even commented that, with camisoles, Keystone isn't even in the picture. Maybe Keystone is an a cold climate... During the trip, the Tee is talking to the back seat again, paused for a second and thoughtfully mentioned to me she can't really see that well without her glasses, which she left in the hotel. Now my attention was very focused on the other cars, exits and such ahead of us as we barreled down the road at 70 miles per hour. The reason I bring this up? During this chat, they start talking about shelf bras in the camisoles. Tee mentions she doesn't like them and proceeds demonstrates the problem with the one she is currently wearing. Pulling open her top a little to pull up the shelf bra, she laughs and apologizes for digging around “in there” and such. I can't really say if she did bear anything, I was too focused on the traffic and the turn off, plus I was still thinking about Keystone.

Back at the hotel, I modify my session for the next day, join a conference call with business partners and talk geek. I once again feel like a guy! I turn in for the evening ready for my presentation the next day.

We head out to New Horizons for the conference. I show up early and setup the computer for my needs (Firefox, bookmarks, FTP program). I give the session. A few of them have chats with each other while I'm giving my speech. We take a break and I get good feedback – but I ask about the chatting. TJ says that is just how these women are, they don't ever stop. I decide to not let it bother me and continue on. We cover the basics of the web and I pull up those stores which have sites and give a light critical review. By the end, I'm thinking I have bombed. Then the questions flood in, it appears they can both talk and listen at the same time as they ask some really good questions. My session is over, I'm thankful, and we go to lunch.

At lunch, I sat with the international group (ok, two ladies from Canada...) and we discussed the session and some questions they have. Everyone says they liked it, I'm paid and I'm off to the airport.

But, before I leave, I do ask one of the ladies what is Keystone. She laughs, the same laugh we give when someone asks us what is HTML, knowing I've asked an apparent basic question, she explains it to me. Keystone is next to tombstone – if you're not marking up your product by Keystone, you will never succeed and your store will die and go to tombstone. Ah, so it all makes sense now. Further looking to understand, I ask about “going Tribal” and “Spanx” and I'm given the full product line names. I'm also told to never cross Brighton. They sue, apparently.

Content with my gained knowledge, I'm off to Delta (which means Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport) to fly through Atlanta to get back home. I hate Atlanta, every time I fly through Atlanta, I'm delayed and my 90 minute layover turns into a 30 minute layover. I go from being at gate B34 to gate B36 for my connecting flight to gate T01 to E45 (those people who travel Atlanta are groaning now, trust me) – this time, however, everything goes as scheduled for me. A connecting flight to Atlanta is canceled and I'm flying back home with no one sitting next to me – better than I expected!

TODCON 2007 RULED!

Ok, this was the best TODCon ever (exceptions listed below) and here are my top reasons:

• It was the largest so far!
• Great speaker line up with many new speakers
• Good deal of regulars attended and I always love seeing the regulars
• Adobe was there in force! (and they are a really great bunch of people, took time to speak to everyone they could and accepted everyone's suggestions and opinions to make the products better).
  • Ken - wow, managed to handle questions very diplomatically and with great patience (and yes, we want everything)
  • Randy - was sent to speak to the extension developers, which was me and Tom Muck - we had excellent conversations with some good dialog, really appreciated your time!
  • Christian - yes, Spry's code base is too big and, yes, I know you'll work on that :-) I enjoyed the conversations with you a lot and appreciate the time you spent talking with me (and the ideas you gave me for products I could make!)
  • Sharon - congrats on the promotion to manager! And thanks for the discussions on the product and helping us realize the daunting task of quality Adobe faces each cycle.
  • Greg - thanks for the dinner! And for bringing Steph in on time for her keynote session!
• I got to meet some wonderful small business people, some who'd been around for a little while (like the bike shop guys from Tallahassee - go Noles) and some who are just starting out (like Carrie Enders - CKA Creative who is transitioning from print work to web design work with a focus on small business).
• Met the crew from lucidus (or, found out they were the crew from lucidus, already having known them a little while) and that was cool!
• Found some new opportunities from several attenders via networking!
• Got to pick up the slack on giving Green a hard time.
• Several really good dinner conversations and good eats too!
• Found out that, in fact, I can survive drinking Pepsi instead of Coke products.

Some exceptions are:

• Chris Flick wasn't there, nor was Sheri and other regulars, they were really missed.
• Barbra had to leave early and I didn't get to spend any time chatting with her
• Vegas, in June, is still very very hot
• I didn't have an internet connection through the first half of my AJAX/server side presentation - but I was able to recover!
• Missed out on Chaz's BBQ dinner (heard he is a great griller!)
• Didn't get to meet with a lot of the new attenders this year.
• I have to wait another year to go to the next one (once Ray recovers from this one and wants to do the next one!)

As usual, the conference was better then the prior ones. Hopefully next year, everyone can attend and we will have a better conference then before! A special thanks to Judy for the ride to the airport!