ForbesOnTech

Mid Season Garden Replenishment, Gardening for Stroke Patients-- Plus Bonus Graph on Pellet Rifles and Rodent Control,

Halfway through the 2009 gardening season, and I’ve cleared about one-third of my vegetable garden.

That’s the sad news. Most, but not all of my potatoes are now in cool dry storage out in a closet in my garage where they’re safe from most insects and all rodents that might flee the sun by running through my open garage door on hot days.

The bare spots in the garden will be filled the end of this weekend, which explains the young vegetables in six-inch tubs I moved from my shaded potting table to the edge of my garden early Saturday morning.

Through experience, I’ve learned replanting my garden mid way thorough the growing season here in rural San Diego County is the perfect way to monitor soil conditions (mineral content, ph levels and the like) before setting hybrids I like to grow. Gradually, I’ve come to appreciate that little things—notably the presence and content of trace minerals and nutrients in the soil as well care in replanting vegetables such as fast growing beefsteak tomatoes, cantaloupes and honeydew melons and pumpkins (all of which transpire in the morning) make a huge difference in my garden.

Mid-season replanting always leaves me with the rhetorical question “Can you really grow too many tomatoes).

But what the hell, no one in my family has ever once turned down a basket of big vine ripened beefsteak tomatoes or six ears of fresh yellow corn and a couple of sweet melons.

So the remaining hours gardening hours this Saturday will be spent with a shovel turning earth, buckets of rich compost, my mighty Mantis tiller and vegetables I’ve started from seed. All of which is a good thing.

I’ve successfully stopped the burrowing rodents from invading my garden so far tghnis year, but I have my scoped Beeman pellet rifle and a small tub of jacketed long range pellets within  arms reach in case a furry brown head pops up anywhere near my garden.

Gardening is something I’ recommend for stroke patients. It’s near impossible for me to be angry at anything when I garden and I love growing the ingredients for my own salads and the dinner table.

Oh and channeling your anger through the scope of a good pellet rifle as its cross hairs come to rest unwaveringly on a voles head near your garden is a very good way to deal with stroke related anger born of frustration or a simple twist of fate. Besides, your local hawks will scream their thanks at the protein you contribute to their diet.

 I recommend gardening to other stroke patients. It gets us out into the sun, reddens our necks, builds mobility and agility by making us use both hands and forcing us to get up and down from a kneeling position and it creates satisfaction and commitment that you just don’t get from walking the aisles at a local farmers’ market.  And, as you walk the displays it gives you the rare opportunity to make snarky comments about someone else’s’ tomatoes.

I’m far from perfect, some of my beefsteaks may be bursting from their skins and my neck is definitely red, from another day working in my vegetable garden. Jim Farmer Forbes 07/11/2008.

Goog to Launch light OS for Netbooks-- Fencing with Microsoft Begins

Google’s pulled the “beta” label of its cloud based apps early this week and on Tuesday said Chrome would be its operating system for netbooks.

Ace blogger and former PCWeek colleague Dave Churbuck posted a concise piece on the announcement here that deserves a read.

I agree with Dave completely: Google’s moves could be the first wedge that topples the Wintel hegemony. I do, however, have a couple of lingering questions:

+ Is Google willing to say its personal productivity software is compatible with corporate applications (which could prevent third-party consultancies and in house IT analysts from recommending a switch to Chrome and Goog apps

+ Will Goog’s apps, including associated cloud storage always be free?

+ What netbook makers will ally themselves with Google from the outset?

+ What corporations are willing to ally themselves and depend on or believe that Goog can offer continuous access to all its apps.

+ Will the Clearwire/Comcast/Sprint HighSpeed2go partnership and other wireless data networks or netbook makers pair up or endorse the Google platform?

Looking at this announcement it’s hard not to imagine a bony, desiccated, hand emerging from the moldy compost around Redmond holding a billboard proclaiming “Don’t forget Windows 7, it’s compatible with corporate standards.”

I’d love to be working reporter right now.

One of the first companies I’d call for insight and a reaction is SalesForce.com, since its very life is tied to two critical components in the netbook future; persistent connectivity, and near pure cloud-based computing. Another company that could get a pleasant bump with this announcement is industry pioneer Intuit, whose small business software has a big share of the SMB market.

Google as an operating system vendor going against Microsoft with a persistent computing, cloud-based strategy?

Be still my beating heart.--Jim Forbes 07/08/2007

Gangster Humming Birds Attack Local Hawk, Cheap Boat Ramp Theater, Local Seal Takes Police Boat on Joy Ride

There’s nothing quite like the absence of sharp pain in your extremities to get you refocused on things such as regular blog posting.

While recuperating from my monumental act of stupidity two weeks ago, I’ve had ample time to watch the world fly by as I sat stupefied in a chair on my front porch.

From my hazy throne over the last two weeks I’ve seen:

Two gangster emerald throated humming birds, repeatedly attack juvenile Coopers hawk gulping water from the 7 gallon stock tank in my rose garden. I’ve always known humming birds are extremely aggressive but to watch them take on and drive away a hawk that’s at least 100 times their size is to gain new insight into Mother Nature’s mysterious box of fun.

Three common fence lizards (aka “blue bellies”) drag scorpion lunches onto my porch and spend up to one hour devouring them live—which involves considerable writhing and jaw readjusting on the lizards’ part. The presence and abundance of scorpions in my front yard is why I never ever go out at night barefoot, anymore. Trust me, “stupid can hurt” and stepping on a scorpion gets your attention, every time.

One of the local red tail hawks tire of being harassed by the local crows, fly way up, circle on a thermal than come plummeting down like God’s own kinetic energy weapon and explode a crow into a soft rain of black feathers. Hawks 1; Crows, 0. Sometimes Mother Nature is wickedly funny.

My peaches are nearly all mature now and I’ve given six boxes of fruit to neighbors, family and friends. I know it’s time to jump on my murderous ATV when MaForbes comes out and declares: “I feel like making a pie, are there any peaches left on the tree?” When the peaches are all gone, it will be apricot cobbler time and my two Royal ‘cot trees are just about ready to pick.

There really is nothing quite like movement induced leg and ankle pain to help you quickly revert to full contact gardening. My bush tomatoes have all been picked clean and as of this week there’s no sign of new flowers so unless they flower again, they’ll get pulled at the end of this week.

My heirloom tomatoes and giant beefsteaks have all begun producing and there are at least three, one pounders ripening in my cages. This is the last year, however. I’ll grow Bush Goliath tomatoes. They’re only goliath-sized when compared to a cherry tomato.

I think I over planted my potato containers. I have a nice sack of about 40 small to medium sized tasty Yukon gold spuds  I believe I should have only planted four or five seed potatoes in each container, not seven or eight.

Penultimately, if you live near a boat launch ramp and are looking for inexpensive theater, I recommend taking a picnic basket and parking near that ramp on a summer holiday weekend. Lots of fun watching people zoom away from the ramp only to discover, one mile away, they forgot to install the drain plugs in their boat, or adequately  charge their batteries. Vessel Assist down here in San Diego seemed particularly busy over the Fourth.

But even funnier twas a seal who last week stole a harbor police boat left idling unmanned dockside. The seal then went for its own little self-directed harbor tour. The police chased, overtook and lay alongside the stolen boat, sent its first wave of boarders over the side and regained control of their vessel The seal was not cited for grand theft boat and was released after a stern warning. The fun loving pinniped was last seen circling the Everingham brothers bait barge.  A good time was had by all; the seal, the harbor police, the film crews and we fishermen who can laugh at the yellowtail thieving bastards.— I’m back. Jim Forbes, 07/07/09.

I was Right; Stupidity Should Hurt--My Murderous ATV

I’m limping proof of the axiom: “stupidity should be painful.”

Last week I started to take my trash containers down to the street. Seated on my ATV, I reached over to pick up the plastic yard trash container with my left hand. Whereupon, forgetting that I have serious left side weakness, I fell off my Kawasaki quad, which promptly returned the love and excellent care I provide it by running me over in low gear.

Lying on the ground I distinctly remember thinking “Uh Oh, this is going to hurt” as the quad’s rear wheel chugged up my left leg, starting at my foot. It hen motored over my left ankle, continuing past my knee and finally coming off my body after it ran over my groin.

At 6 am in the morning no one was awake here at Rancho Bizarro to hear my plaintive bleating “Help, help!”

So I crawled slug-like over to my quad, pulled myself up, used my right leg to mount the quad, sidesaddle and complete my morning chores.

I drove my murderous ATV up on my porch and hobbled through the door to my home office.

I thought “hell, I have pretty good motion in my ankle and knee so nothing’s broken, I’ll just man up and deal with the pain of two strained joints. Besides. I have some Vicodin left from my last injury,”

By last Thursday the pain in my watermelon-sized left foot convinced me to go see my Doc.

My self-diagnosis was wrong; a slender bone on the top of my foot had a hairline crack.

And guess what? There’s not much they can do for such stupidity induced injuries, so a nurse showed me how to use a compression wrapper to girth my foot and told me to put an ice pack on it several times a day.

Oh they also refilled my seriously depleted bottle of Vicodin.

So for the last several days I’ve spent my days watching bad comedies, sniveling, and hobbling around my house with a cane.

The one upside to all this was the bad color combinations on the tie-dyed t-shirts I made yesterday and the fact that a high wheel; Caterpillar DH-5 was mysteriously left on a nearby vacant lot two days ago.

Damn the warning on the side of the bottle ”Do not operate heavy machinery while taking this drug!”

Well duh.

Like I said stupidity should be painful.—Jim Forbes 06/28/2009

yukon Gold Vines Dying, but I'm happy, Squash Going Vertical in Cages; Cottontails Arrive in Regimental Strength

This is one of my four tubs of Yukon Gold potatoes. No, they're not trashed. In fact, it's good that the vines are dying. As soon as they're all brown-- in about one more week, it's time to dump the tubs and harvest tasty tubers.

  In an effort to give my tomato vines more room to spreadout, I caged my butternut squash this year. i'm pretty sure that by harvest time, the vines will have completed one vertical lap of the cage and started back up.

Just when I thought all of the burrowing rodents had moved out of my garden, Mr Cottontail showed up.

It's not that I mind one cottontail. it's when an entire regiment (reinforced) shows up that i briefly consider and discard the idea of unlimbering my scoped Ruger 10/22. Run bunny Run!

 

No, I didn't blast the bunny. Beside the territory under the peach tree in front of Ma Forbes' patio is "Sanctuary"! Besides, it's loaded with fallen ripe peaches.

The preceding interlude has been brought to you by an old retired journalist who succumbed to a long-represssed desire to grow things late in life.--Jim "Farmer "Forbes 06/20/2009

Lost balance, Fell of Quad ATV, Running Over My Ankle and Knee-- Paying More Attention to Details, Post Stroke.

Woops. Taking the yard trash down to the street this morning I had an unpleasant reminder of why I should never forget I have a stroke-related condition called “left-side deficit.”

Having mounted my ATV< I drove over to pick up my container of yard trash, reached too far and lost my balance. I instinctively stuck my left leg down to stop the fall and reached with my right hand to the ATV’s right handlebar. I mistakenly grabbed to low and hit the quad’s accelerator paddle giving it a slight goose.

Whereupon I felt the bikes left rear wheel roll over my foot and then my ankle. I had enough presence of mind to throw myself off the Quad and try to keep my left leg straight. Eventually the ATV slowed -- after it rolled over my kneecap.

Whimpering on the ground, I managed to stand. The pain was there, and I quickly wiggled my leg and ankle to make sure nothing was broken.

Meanwhile, my quad has idled away and is pushing against my neighbor’s chain link fence.. I gingerly dragged myself to the ATV, took a side saddle position and reversed back to the yard trash barrel, taking it down to the street, a half mile down my driveway.

I guess I won’t be climbing a ladder this weekend, picking peaches.

But I do have a new supply of pain pills, a nice Irish shillelagh, and some parked heavy equipment I have an inexplicable urge to operate, right after my nap

It’s absolutely true: “that which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” And sometimes it makes you more cautious too.—Jim Forbes, 06/19/2009

CLick Frees Credit Card-Sized Traveler at Forefront of Back-up Hardware Renaissance

There’s a major renaissance underway now in peripherals that enhance mobile computers and personal computing. I believe nothing makes this point better than backup systems that are as reliable as they are easy to use.

In the dark ages of backup, you had to tediously load your data on CD after CD to protect your personal files, then came first generation peripherals such as those made by IO Mega and others that simplified this basic process.

In the fullness of time, cloud based virtual storage and backup appeared. However the cost of personal broadband kept such solutions out of reach of many consumers, and many of those providers evaporated in the heat of the first dot com melt down.

The back-up technology Renaissance may be one of the best things that has ever happened to portable users. Devices have gotten smaller, but more importantly; backup software has reached the point where little or no user intervention is needed. My favorite backup device is so small (roughly the length and depth of a credit card) it’s earned a permanent place in my back pack. With 16 GB of SSD memory, the ClickFree Traveler has all the memory I need to back up virtually all of my important documents, power point, OneNote ands other files, plus there’s room for the frequently funny .WMV files as well as important family photos I store.

Using the Traveler couldn’t be easier; you just swivel out its naked USB connector, which is attached to the device with a fine ribbon cable, connect it to an available USB port and mark the files or directories you want to backup. That’s it. It took less than five minutes to back up the  several gigabytes of files in “My Documents” directory that I think  are critically imporant and less than 30 seconds more for the other files I want to carry with  me on the road.

I like that Click Free’s Traveler works with entertainment data files, and this device is a convenient way to carry gigabytes worth of music or high quality movies, without eating up disk space on a notebook.

ClickFree’s software simplifies backing data up like no other application I've ever used before.

Like other members of the ClickFree backup device family, Traveler backs up only the information you think you need. It doesn’t “scrape” your drive, copying drivers and other code needed to boot up your computer. And, it can be used with multiple computers, which (exactly what I do with it) and is a reason why I think this is a great backup device.

I tested Click Free’s Traveler on several laptops (My Lenovo IdeaPad 650, a friend’s macbook Pro running OSX Leopard), an Acer Netbook, and an HP all in one desktop. It successfully backed up all my vrious file types found on my machines running Windows XP, the 64-bit version of Vista and the aforementioned Apple operating system

Click Free Traveler can be ordered from www.clickfree.com and is available in three configurations: $79.99 for 16GB, $149.99 for32GB, and $249.99 for 64GB. All three of the devices  use the same credit card-sized form factor.

While this device’s size and form factor may tempt you to try  and keep it in your wallet you have only to look at the gently curved credit cards there to understand that Click Free Traveler would last longer in a pocket in your computer carrying case than encased in leather riding on your hip.—Jim Forbes 06/16/2009.

Giving Memorable Product Demonstrations-- Recommended Reading on How to Nail a Demo

Learning how to pitch an idea or a company may be one of the most important things an entrepreneur can learn on the path to success. Sadly it’s not something that’s taught in business schools.

“Giving Memorable Product Demonstrations”,a new book penned by Nathan Gold and Claudio Sennhauser, provides the basics of how to quickly and effectively pitch any business or technology.

Open this book and you’ll find that it’s much more than a primer for young entrepreneurs.  It starts out with a simple idea:  inventory and critique your presentation skills using a video camera in one continuous take. From that point on, Gold and Sonnhauser show entrepreneurs and other presenters how to build and deliver effective live product demonstrations using basic and proven techniques

This book divides demonstrations into seven readily understood steps. I like the author’s approach to the concept of how to deliver compelling demonstrations because they don’t mask key points with marketing double speak.

This how-to manual is a must read for anyone that wants to deliver results-oriented presentations or demonstrations to a wide variety of audiences, including venture capital providers.  Furthermore, this book should be a must read for any corporate third-party marketing consultant involved in any demonstration setting.

The authors have decades of experience in developing presentations. Nathan Gold is one of the few people in the last nine years who have earned more than one DemoGod award at Demo new product launch events. Claudio Sennhauser, who with Mr. Gold is also a cofounder of The Demo Coach, is an experienced presentation coach with an extensive background working for European companies. “Giving Memorable Product Demonstrations” can be purchased for $19.95 direct here  . A hard bound version of the book will be available later this summer and can be purchased at Amazon.com or other book retailers.

This book is a valuable resource to anyone who needs to deliver an effective memorable presentation that can be used for numerous categories of audiences.—Jim Forbes 06/15/2009

Disclosure: As a producer of Demo events, I was among the group that gave Mr. Gold his first DemoGod award.

Rethinking Bundling-- Cloud-Based Bundles Could Drive Netbook Success!

Dominance in the emerging netbook category could be subject to an old, overlooked play by manufacturers:software bundling. Bundling is as old as the computer market but an adverse reaction to so-called shovel-ware has cast a pall over the practice. Despite this, well thought out bundles designed for persistently connected netbooks could be a determining factor in the long term success or failure of this category.

Let’s look at where netbooks are today. Superficially, most of the news driving netbook coverage has been entirely too predictable and based on the mundane: manufacturers releasing machines with the latest processor and core logic; incremental enhancements such as larger keyboards and screens, the addition of discrete graphics, or support of WAN cellular modems and deals with national cell networks.

What’s been overlooked; however, is usability and suitability, areas where netbooks designed around one or more cloud-based software suites can assume leadership positions.

Today, netbooks are not pitched at corporate IT except to the extent that corporate IT has deployed individual test systems or in limited evaluations of web based applications. The market netbook manufacturers miss right now are medium sized organizations using Software as application-based solutions (SAAS) such as those provided by entities like SalesForce.com. And there’s a lot of light space in Sales Force.com’s cloud, because it’s never tried to be an office automation software supplier.

This is where Google or (a mightily revamped Microsoft) can shine through. Both have stakes in office automation software. And Google’s cloud-based word processing, spreadsheet and presentation graphics have been evaluated by most major corporations (which represents the figurative pot of gold at the end of the cloud-based SAAS and netbook rainbows).

Google may be the most obvious supplier of such a suite, but even that company has patchy holes in its cloud cover when it comes to software as an application. While Google has a strong SAAS suite, there’s enough wiggle room in its strategy for other companies to squeeze in and grab Google while profiting from the net book phenomena. Specifically the opportunity for Google is sales automation software that includes rugged contact management with rock solid synchronization.

Another part of the equation belongs to the cell networks. By definition, persistent connectivity is the backbone of mobile workforces equipped with netbooks. Any hardware maker that wants to succeed in netbooks will need a cell network partner. And it’s those partners who can assemble the alliances needed for an effective cloud-based strategy to large, medium-sized or other businesses.—Jim Forbes 09/13/2009

How to Make the Perfect Peach Pie--First, Wake 91 Year Old Mother From Nap, Then "Flee Kitchen."

How to make a perfect Peach Pie:

1. Pick ripe peaches.2. peel peaches3. Wake 91 year old napping mother.4.Get flour, and other redients,mixing bowl rolling pin ready5.Obey instructions to  "get the hell out of the kitchen."6. wait patiently, eat pie.7. Repeat as necessary when more peaches and apricots ripen.

Photo of MaForbes and yet another of her absolutely perfect pies. Disregard Catzilla in background. Summertime, and the living is very easy.Jim Forbes; 06/110/2009