Archives for September 2007

Lots o’ news

Quite a busy day today:
– Yahoo bought Zimbra for $350 million dollars.
– AOL decided to move their headquarters to New York.
– Microsoft got a decision in Europe.
– Lots of TechCrunch 40 coverage is up on techcrunch.com.
– The New York Times is opening up large quantities of its premium content for free.
– Apple is hosting a press event in London tomorrow.
– Oh yeah, SCO filed for bankruptcy on Friday. Not to editorialize, but… personally I’m glad.

So a pretty busy day. Oh, and Nathan was among the first people to spot something new from Google: the ability to make presentations. Also, Google Docs and Spreadsheets has been renamed to Google Docs. You can check the official posts about the new presentation software from Google. I’m playing with it now; it looks like it can import PowerPoint. It’s available in 25 languages, multiple people can collaborate at once, and it’s got Google Talk built-in to allow people to chat.

On days like this, it’s best to just hunker down until the blogstorms subside. 🙂

Update: Be sure to watch the video on the official “Presently” blog post. It’s lo-fi and funny, but actually explains why it’s good to store docs in the cloud so you can collaborate. If Ze Frank made a video for Google, it would probably look like this. 🙂

Update: A few people are chatting over on Nathan’s document and Drew’s document. It’s kinda fun. Nathan has a slide like this:

Presently loves lemurs

So some people are over on the side going:

Chat on Google Talk in a presentation

Update: Chatting in Nathan’s presentation, we figured out that you can embed a presentation on a web page using an iframe. I have no idea what the security implications are, so don’t complain to me if it causes a problem, but it’s pretty fun. 🙂

Fun letter

I know someone that got a hand-written letter in blue ink that says:

Dear (name)
My name is David, my wife is Jennifer. We would like to buy your house at (address). Please call me @ 408-772-0507.

Sincerely,
David Jan

My friend thought this was strange and did a Google search for 408-772-0507 and came across this page on David Jan. Several other people report getting similar notes. They speculate that it’s a property flipper looking for cheap houses without having to compete against other house buyers, because 4-5 other people mention that they’ve gotten these hand-written letters as well.

One difference is that the other earlier letter refers to “my assistant Jennifer” instead of “my wife Jennifer.” Did David Jan marry his assistant? Or maybe his wife is his assistant?

I like that Google can help with stuff like this. Someone gets a handwritten letter in the mail that sounds like a personal offer, but a quick search uncovers that this David Jan fellow has probably sent a bunch of these letters.

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