Count me among those instantly skeptical of any new business startup that has anything to do with the music industry, particularly as 2009 approaches. Heckfire, I was instantly skeptical of these...

Filed under: Cellphones

If there was ever a phone worth cutting down to size with a completely shoddy but not actually completely unattractive fake edition, it's the Motorola Aura. What we have here is the Wingtech D20, which shares the swivel form factor of the Aura, mocks the round LCD with a perfectly boring square one in a round hole, and boasts a surprisingly weak complement of features, even for a "fake" phone. Oh how you suffer for fashion, Motorola.

[Thanks, Chris]

Keepin' it real fake, part CLXVIII: Motorola Aura clone is everything we ever wanted in a knockoff originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: OpEd, Survivor, Episode Reviews

(S17E09) Nope, this Survivor episode's title isn't about Kenny. He's been the mastermind behind the last two blindsides -- Marcus and Ace. If anyone is the brains behind everything, it should be him. He definitely couldn't be the brawn behind everything, but brawn isn't always the key to getting to the final four of this show. So, to whom does the title refer? It's someone who's far from a mastermind in the game, but it's key to the episode. Read on.

Unlikely triumphs, unusual players

This season has been one for unlikely triumphs from unusual players. The first one who comes to mind is Kenny. He went from a meek geek to a major power player within the last three episodes. Yet he remains a bit under the radar of the crowd, as his ally Crystal is so much more blatant about things. He's a gamer and has definitely stepped up his game. He's sort of like a younger Yau-Man sans the charisma and personality. He has that real wimpy physique and seems to pose no serious threat. But threatening he is, and they should be noticing he holds the power of persuasion.

Sugar is another unusual player. She's the wild card of the show, albeit a teary one at times. They keep sending her off to Exile Island, so she really hasn't been able to interact with the others all that much. Kenny managed to get her to blindside her main ally in the game, Ace. She's going to keep on surviving as long as everyone wants her vote. They all think and/or know she has the idol. I don't see her going up for the vote soon.

Then there's Susie. Yikes, talk about a weak player! Ah, but she seemed to get a second life once she allied with Crystal and Kenny. All of a sudden, she's an important vote and can make fire and everything. Who woulda thunk it?

Reward and merge time

I enjoyed the slingshot golf they played for Reward. I can't see me doing it here in urban New Jersey. But given a large field, it could be a cool party game. What I didn't enjoy was Randy acting like such a jerk on the way easy shot which brought the Fang win. Matty was more hyper than needed about it, too.

As for the merge, it was the perfect timing to save Bob's butt in the game. I've grown to like the guy, and he would have been the next target of the Kenny Killer Machine had the new Kota gone to Tribal Council. At least they didn't just jumble the Kota and Fang tribes again. That was getting old.

Vendetta, who has a vendetta?

Kenny is bearing a grudge against Charlie because Charlie "stole" the clue to the immunity idol from him at the picnic. Thus, Kenny goes to work his mojo against Charlie. He spreads the idea that Charlie is "the brains behind everything." Um, actually, no. Charlie was a follower of Marcus. Nonetheless, Kenny plants the seed, and it grows.

Randy has a vendetta against Crystal which seems way overblown to me. He's like a pouty bully. Don't get me wrong -- I don't think Crystal has played the game well, and her personality grates on me almost as much as Randy's does. But Randy has a mean streak. I'm turned off by his bully ways, calling her Sasquatch and Big Foot. He just seems so schoolyard about it all.

Corinne wants Sugar's vote for their side to get Crystal out, yet goes on about her being a moron. I don't know. Perhaps Corinne and Randy should get their own show and call it The Name-calling Meanies or something. Both have a cruel streak which makes me want them booted sooner rather than later. Yeah, I understand manipulating others, but that's not what they're doing. They're just plain mean people.

Fire-starters or not

It's been a while since we've seen a fire Immunity Challenge. More recently, it's been used to break ties. The results of this one were super surprising. Susie and Sugar? I would think that Bob should have been up to the task. But, no. It was one of those unlikely triumphs from unusual players once again. Susie wins the first individual immunity past merge. Wow.

The tribe has spoken

With the way Corinne spoke about Sugar and the fact that Randy also wanted Sugar's vote to oust Crystal (and I don't like him), I was happy that Sugar went with Kenny's mojo-working ways. She's an emotional player, and I can't help but think if she knew what Corinne was saying about her, she'd cry. The Charlie blindside was purely a move because Kenny was angry at him about the idol clue. I'm not sure that I would have gone for him at this time in the game. I think I might have gone for Randy or Corinne because they're actually stronger players. But, at least Charlie can go goo-goo eyes over his buddy Marcus in the jury now.

A few parting notes: I think Bob's fake idol is the best yet. Anything beats the stick, but it even beats Yau-Man's turtle idol! Also, Matty seemed overly happy to see Kenny once again after the Ace blindside. What's up with that?

 

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Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to present at the Business of Software conference held in Boston.

Here’s a video of that event.  Though I was a bit off my game (not enough sleep), people did seem to find it interesting and/or useful and the presentation was highly rated.

I’ll watch it along with you and add some notes to this article later today.  Enjoy (and please leave your comments and criticims).  Would love to hear them.

 

1.  Your idea can suck.  Just get started.

2.  You can be in the middle of nowhere and still build a great business.

3.  Not having cash breeds good behavior.  It’s helpful to have constratints.

4.  In defense of the modest outcome:  You don’t HAVE to build the next Facebook.  Modest liquidity events are highly under-rated.

5.  “I’m a complete introvert.  It’s not that I don’t like people, I just don’t like beind around them a whole lot.”

6.  Something’ changed here.  You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get your message out there.

7.  The real issue with VC is not the cost of capital (which is high), but how hard it is to actually raise it.

8.  You have to go through the 12 flaming hoops of venture capital.

9.  All the time you should’ve been spending solving your customer’s problem, you use to start to solve the VC’s problem.

10.  Write a blog, not a business plan.

Hope you enjoy the presentation.  It was a great conference and I had the pleasure of meeting with many of you there.  Look forward to the next one.

---

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The release of the new 3G iPhone and the launch of the Application Store secured the spotlight last week but there was another release which caught my attention. Apple launched MobileMe to replace the .Mac service which has been around for awhile. Though the .Mac migration may have had a few hiccups, the new MobileMe service offers users who pay just $99 per year an Apple run exchange for keeping contacts, calendar events and email synced to a PC or Mac computer and iPhone or Touch. The release positions Apple into a new space as a supplier of personal enterprise computing solutions. Apple takes on "free" email providers by locking up new me.com users to an account on a yearly subscription. Will this change the "free" email standard?

While I don't think everyone will use MobileMe since it goes against the "free" email standard that we have all become accustom to, I think it might raise the awareness of the quality and performance of free services. Gmail has raised concerns with outages which it justifies through the use of its endless tiny beta tag. These "free" email woes and the fact that keeping my contacts and calendar in sync is not an easy task has caused me to seek help and I'm hoping MobileMe might be able to supply that help. Apple is smart for attacking this personal enterprise market with MobileMe because mainstream America spends a lot of time in email. It also is a space Google is on a path to jump into especially with the gPhone said to be on its way.

I signed up for a new Me.com account as it will act as a repository of all my contacts, calendar events and emails and push them directly to my computers and iPhone real-time. If you asked me a year ago if I would be signing up and paying for email, contacts and storage from Apple, I probably would have laughed but I think the synced experience between my handheld mobile device, my computer an the Web is something that I have been desperately in need of. My corporate accounts use an exchange server to keep synced but my personal contacts have been scattered about Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail and Gmail. MobileMe addresses a need and syncs all contacts and should help me to keep track of all my contacts in one place, backed up on server and I am willing to pay a $99 yearly fee to keep them in sync.

Would you pay for MobileMe?

Let me know your SOMEWHAT FRANK opinion on paying for email, storage and an exchange server service in the comments section below.

EVERYTHING BAD HAPPENS IN JUNE: Hillary is trying to protect us, people! So much bad stuff goes down in June, it's crazy! That's why they call it "June Gloom," in San Diego. [Political Machine]