.farrell - more than you wanted to know ...

firefox got its mojo back with 3.0

farrell — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:18:43 -0700

I'd been a devotee of the Firefox browser for a long time. Until Safari 3 for the Mac came out, that is... Safari was far faster at loading pages than the prior version of Firefox. So much so, that I was willing to give up the ability to customize Firefox with add-ons. Until now.

Firefox 3.0 was just made available and it is outstanding. Quicker than Safari's newest version in my estimation. And speed is really everything with browsers.

I do like web apps that work, and this does. Plus, my favorite add-ons are back, including Web Developer -- critical for anyone building websites -- and Delicious Bookmarks.

Of course, the browser market is a moving target and I will certainly try Apple's next iteration of Safari. However, for now I've changed my default browser back to Firefox!

frozen in grand central

farrell — Fri, 23 May 2008 06:16:40 -0700

So, this is pretty weird.

More than 200 people stood absolutely still, frozen in Grand Central Station in New York City for 5 minutes. People around them were completely puzzled.

Take a look.

how much does a major highway cost?

farrell — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:02:47 -0700

I guess I'd never given it much thought. But if I did, I would not have imagined...

It turns out an investment group has just bought the Pennsylvania Turnpike for $12.8 billion. Well, the right to run it, anyway, which of course includes the ability to charge tolls to drivers -- and make money. Here're the details from The New York Times:

A consortium led by Citigroup and Spain’s Abertis Infraestructuras won the bidding war to run the Pennsylvania Turnpike with a $12.8 billion offer, Gov. Edward Rendell said on Monday.

The group, which includes Australia’s Babcock & Brown, beat out a rival group that includes Goldman Sachs and Transurban Group.

The deal is the largest ever privatization of a toll road in the United States, as infrastructure investments become increasingly in vogue.

Of course, the transaction still needs legislative approval, which is no small matter. But it could come to pass. If so, what would it mean for drivers? If I were a betting man, I'd say higher tolls are on the way.

reworked photo site

farrell — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:30:45 -0700

Just a quick note: I've reworked the content on my Farrell Kramer Digital Images photo site to better reflect my focus on fashion and beauty photography.

Please do feel free to visit. I've got new slideshows available and, of course, continue to post new photosets to the FKDI Blog. I think it really highlights my best work now.

Enjoy!

microsoft and yahoo would've been perfect for each other

farrell — Sun, 04 May 2008 09:05:56 -0700

The big financial news over this weekend is that Microsoft withdrew its nearly $48 billion offer to purchase Yahoo. Which raises the question...

Who on Earth cares?

After all, Microsoft completely blew the desktop business with the launch of the horrible Windows Vista operating system. (I personally switched to Macs rather than upgrade to that clunker. And how happy I am for it!)

Meanwhile, Yahoo likewise managed to complete blow the online business. With a huge lead, it has been throughly trounced by Google.

Of course, it logically follows that rather than fix what's broken, Microsoft would rather keep shoveling a poor OS at the marketplace and try to fix things by combining with another ailing company. That's not a strategy. That's a surrender...

On second thought, maybe Microsoft and Yahoo are perfect for each other, after all.

book about google apps ... written in a google app

farrell — Fri, 02 May 2008 06:42:52 -0700

I'm a big fan of Google Apps. We use them at my firm for gmail (using our farrellkramer.com domain), shared calendars, chat, and Google Docs, which is an office suite.

Now, here's somone who's really interested in the application. The author of this post is writing a book about Google Apps ... using Google Docs as his word processor. He discusses it in great detail:

Pros and cons to using, say, MS Word

Working from anywhere: In theory, as the book is stored on the Google server farm and not your home computer, you can access and edit it from anywhere, like an internet cafe, or your friend's computer, or a public cafe with wifi. In practice, when writing a book you need to concentrate quite a bit. Some authors may be able to concentrate better when hooked up to their laptop in a public cafe, while others need to go have a non-changing, quiet place – like their home desk, room doors closed. If that's the case, then the "work from anywhere" bonus of online applications is somewhat lost. Nevertheless, the fact that Google Docs allows me to collaborate on the same document with my editor, who sits across the ocean, is a great benefit.

Beyond the pros and cons, the author discusses his workflow -- both in terms of writing and collaboration -- with the very clever use of features such as linking one doc to another and using color coding to specify the draft status of each chapter.

Basically, this is a very cool look at the real power of Google Apps: You can write together with someone else in real time, across geographic boundaries. Even something as complex as an entire book!

.farrell is back

farrell — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:06:15 -0700

Just a quick note to .farrell subscribers who haven't heard from me recently.

In early February, I closed down the old .farrell blog and launched my Farrell Kramer Digital Images blog, which focuses on my photographic work. But I've decided I still need an outlet for non-photographic posts that also fall outside the domain of my PR life.

So, I've relaunched .farrell at the same domain.

I just finished redirecting the old feed URL to the new feed, so you'll see posts start coming across again. I hope you like the blog and feel like sticking around. On the blog site, I've aggregated all my content from across blogs, photo sites, etc. Please stop by and let me know how you like it. You can also find a link there to the old .farrell blog, which has reverted to its original wordpress.com domain and now functions as an archive.

And please do comment. I'd like to hear from you.

introducing the thinkpad ... air?

farrell — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:42:45 -0700

It's nice to know that Apple isn't the only computer manufacturer with a sense of humor...

why another blog, farrell?

farrell — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:17:26 -0700

Good question.

Why would I need to create another blog? After all, I've got one over at Farrell Kramer Communications and another at Farrell Kramer Digital Images. Isn't enough, enough already?

Well, no. With all the blogs, sites and social networks I've got running, I'm beginning to feel a bit dismembered by it all. So, I've decided to resurrect .farrell, which morphed into my photo blog, to have a place to pull it all together.

This blog is meant to let me speak about topics not related to PR and photography, but also aggregate all that content. That's why I've got the sidebars full of links. I want to be able to see it all in one place.

The tabs at the top of the page aggregate the RSS feeds my other sites and networks create. They're meant to bring together not only links, but actual content. Please feel free to check them out. I think they'll work nicely. Enjoy!