Textura Design is a creative force specializing in business blogging for clients big and small.

Blog Archives

November 2005 Archive

The Pee Tree

posted by DL Byron on November 28, 2005

Unfortunately our fake xmas tree smelled like pee when we took it out of the box this year. Mice, a cat, racoon, or something got into it and left behind a pungent order. After some deliberation, cleaning considerations and fumigation options, we threw it out and got ourselves a vintage 50s alumimum tree. Today when I was putting the rest of the trash out for the garbage truck, I noticed someone had stolen the pee tree. Now, I feel bad that they got the pee tree and probably won’t notice it until the plastic limbs heat up to room temperature. I remember when I was in college, the groundskeepers would spike trees with wolverine hormones, or some really nasty smell, to prevent drunkards from cutting down trees for their dorm rooms. That really wasn’t our intent, but someone is going to smell that smell, soon enough.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Clip-n-Seal Gifting

posted by DL Byron on November 28, 2005

We’re expecting a good month for Clip-n-Seal sales, with most being sold as gifts. At Textura Design, we create DIY gift packs with Clip-n-Seals, sealing up snacks and treats and sending them off to friends and family. We’re also seeing increased Amazon sales, as shoppers find us there and leave good reviews.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Business Blogging in the NYTimes

posted by DL Byron on November 27, 2005

As Steve noted in his post yesterday, the NYTimes has published a great article about business blogging that includes more “new than the old,” including a mention of the Blog Business Summit.

And sometimes that’s how it happens … I was reading the news, getting caught up after the Holiday, and boom noticed that the NYTimes mentioned the Blog Business Summit. Wow. Unexpected and a nice surprise.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Thanks for all the weird shit you send me

posted by DL Byron on November 23, 2005

That’s what I’m thankful for today, all the weird shit that readers send me.

Reminds me of why I love the web: handjob robot, metal bikinis, creole something, tag clouds, all in one day.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


And a Nuclear Submarine floats by

posted by DL Byron on November 22, 2005

It’s ominous to be in a call, talking about business blogging, look out my window, and see a nuclear submarine floating by. The subs are based at Bangor, Washington.

Comments (2)
other posts tagged:


First email

posted by DL Byron on November 22, 2005

I received this email last night

hi, ahh I mean yo what’s up diggie dog dude !!!! your the best dad ever !!!!
happy thanks giving !!

That was my daughter’s first email. I paused a while on that, realized how thankful I am, wondered about the punctuation, and damn she’s growing up. (I’m her diggie dog dude)

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


An Angry Tooth

posted by DL Byron on November 18, 2005

My trip to Chicago, and most of my work week, was interrupted by an angry tooth, a really angry tooth that sent me right to an endodondist for a root canal. A root canal sounded very medieval, torturous, and painful. And I think it would’ve been without the calming and reassuring efforts of Dr. Cohen and her staff at West Seattle Endodontics. I asked a ton of questions, she answered all, and made it is pleasant as possible considering the procedure that opens the crown of a tooth, cleans out the pulp, shapes it for filling, and fills the root canals with gutta-percha.

The pain?

The pain of the procedure was minimized with local anesthesia and is absolutely nothing compared to the pain of the angry tooth. Prior to the root canal, I described the pain as visceral, intense, and debilitating. The Dr. told me about mothers that describe the pain as being worse than child birth. Recovering, I made a huge mistake of not dosing correctly on narcotics, learned my lesson, and stayed fully drugged for a day and a half to let the pain calm down.

I checked in with Jim Coudal and he said they partied on in Chicago and celebrated the release of Copy Goes Here. We’ll catch up on beers next time at SXSW Interactive 2006.

Tooth

















Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Chi-Town, Chi-Town . . .

posted by DL Byron on November 14, 2005

It’s gonna All Falls Down (iTunes link), “show ‘em how to get down,” in Chi-Town this week. I’m flying out to the Copy Goes Here release party. Clip-n-Seal is one of the executive producers of the independent film, I’ve got some frequent flyer miles to use, I’ll blog the whole adventure, and hang with Coudal, Fried et al.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Analysts advise to not Upgrade to Windows Vista

posted by DL Byron on November 13, 2005

Describing Windows Vista as an “incremental, evolutionary improvements” over Windows XP, Gartner is advising companies not to upgrade. Incidentally, the beta has been delayed once again.

When Windows Longhorn (Vista’s development name) was rebooted, the ground-breaking, advanced features were gutted and it should’ve been named Windows XP 3. The advanced features users are looking for are available now, in OS X. When Microsoft does release it’s next great operating system, what Vista was supposed to be, they’ll up the ante, just not yet.

Thinking about switching? See Walt Mossberg’s guide. Read more discussion about Microsoft and the iPod Nano.

Comments (2)
other posts tagged:


Live off your PowerBook

posted by DL Byron on November 11, 2005

An excellent review of the new 15-inch Powerbook on Daring Fireball today. I’m on my 2nd PowerBook, after upgrading it from the Rev 1 earlier this year. I had a conversation with Matthew Oliphant about running a PowerBook as “the one” computer yesterday in an instant message conversations and I do just that by connecting it to a 20 inch Cinema Display (for a total of 17 inches of viewing space).

As Gruber notes, the PowerBook is “a reasonable choice to serve as the sole workstation even for demanding users.”

PCMag just reviewed the 17, giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Pam and the Global Economy

posted by DL Byron on November 10, 2005

Today Pam got up early with me today and made calls to

  • China
  • Tunisia
  • Bangladesh
  • India

“You’re world class,” I said. She agreed.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Biznik

posted by DL Byron on November 09, 2005

Happy hour with Biznik tonight! It’ll be a casual discussion of business blogging and more.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


My wish for the world

posted by DL Byron on November 07, 2005

Responding to a survey is his first grade class, my son wrote that his wish for the world is to, “take care of snakes and help them live.”

Very nice. Points for originality, mentioning snakes, and recognizing their need to live. Of course, when Snakes on a Plane hits the theaters, I’m taking him to it.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


A sit down with Microsoft

posted by DL Byron on November 04, 2005

The hive is abuzz after Molly and I had a sit down with Microsoft to talk about standards, their upcoming tools, and specific questions from Dave Shea about IE 7. As Molly noted, “Bridges have been built, and we at the hive are confident that we can continue to be an encouraging, supportive resource for Microsoft developers, no matter where their business strategy might lead.” We’ll meet again, live, on stage at SXSW the WaSP Task Force panel.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Polar Heart Rate Monitor Data Discussion

posted by DL Byron on November 03, 2005

Veen posts on Polar Heart Rate monitors and a discussion ensues about data and frustration for Apple users. Polar makes a great product and great software for PCs, but not for Apple users and the data isn’t in an exportable format for use in other applications.

I agree with Veen and Polar’s view, as with any software manufacturer that’s not developing cross-platform, is short-sighted. With that data opened up, across platforms, I could’ve uploaded my .hrm files to my post about riding up to 10K feet. Continuing that thought, Polar could offer a community site to upload files, plot, and share them. Polar going Web 2.0 would be very useful to cycling geeks and to Polar.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Tour of California

posted by DL Byron on November 02, 2005

Wow! Tour of California details have been announced with big teams (Pro Tour teams), sponsors, and ESPN coverage.

That’s great news for cycling and the sport. It means a Tour de France style bicycle race in the States and it joins the Tour de Georgia, a race that’s just be upgraded to a top category race by the sport’s governing body. 2006 maybe the best ever year for cycling in the US.

Comments (0)
other posts tagged:


Office Live or Dead

posted by DL Byron on November 02, 2005

A day of contrasts with Microsoft: Molly and I meet with MS to discuss their new designer/developer products and at the same time Office Live is announced. After such a great meeting, I couldn’t bring myself to look at Office Live, expecting it to be, well, horrible. A see no evil approach, at least for today.

Where the team we’re meeting with is really doing good work with Standards, Ray Ozzie is announcing Sharepoint on the Web, all bCentral style, a small business portal document thingy. Wagstaff interviews Fried about Office Live and I wondered

  • Ray Ozzie! That’s what they’ve got him doing … Sharepoint on the Web?
  • MS, once again, seem to be scrabbling for relevancy
  • Is this the final result of the great MS internet turnaround from the 90s? They’ve been working on it since then?

I’m sure when Scoble’s blog is back up, a steady drumbeat will start about Office Live and how officey and live it is, while I bet most of us, would rather just log into Basecamp. As Jason said, “Simple tools that do a few things really well.” Not a bloated application, bloated even larger on the web.

Update

Molly blogs the WaSP/MS meeting

Comments (3)
other posts tagged: