Okay, so in case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a geek (but a cool one).  I guess that means that I can attend “geek dinners.”  I dined with a bunch of cool people last night amidst spicy Chinese food and conversations of digital media, Windows, content and blogs.  It was good to see some old eHome / DMD people again.  Thanks to Omar for the invite.

... and yes Omar, I do post to my blog.  I even beat you on this one.

The college radio station that I revived has rolled out a new web site - http://www.georgetownradio.com/.

It's great to see that they are still going strong after almost 10 years.  I still remember one administrator saying that she didn't think it would last more than three years.

Check out their online stream.  Very eclectic Georgetown radio as usual.  The only thing they're missing is the Karl Marx classical music morning show we had one day a week.

Here's why:

• Sunday starts one minute after 11:59pm Saturday night.  Usually Saturday night is pretty good around that time and it tends to get a little better before it winds down.
• Breakfast - Simply put, I love breakfast food and on Sunday mornings I almost always make a frittata (an Italian omelet), coffee, juice, cereal and bacon or sausage
• I'm pretty much caught up from the past week.  I work a lot of hours during the week and have a fairly long commute between SF and Mountain View.  That means that a lot of stuff that people do when they get home from work gets put off to Saturday for me.
• Jazz - My Jazz group usually jams on Sunday morning.
• Football - Packer games at Zeke's, the main Packer sports bar in San Francisco.
• Sunday night TV - I record all of it on my DVR so I can watch it when I want to, but I usually watch some of it delayed on Sunday night.
• The Sunday paper - The Chronicle is a little weak as a newspaper (I prefer the WSJ or NYT) but there's just a ritual about reading my local paper on Sunday mornings.
• Heading to the coast - I try to get some time in at the coast, whether it be hiking, reading the paper, reading magazines or just relaxing.  That doesn't happen much during winter, but you did see the bullet about football above, right? :)

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_06/b3919124_mz063.htm

BillG Q&A: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_06/b3919127_mz063.htm 

Yup, that's the group I work in.

• http://www.wematter.com/comcast-dvr.htm
• http://blogs.msdn.com/johnmont/archive/2004/11/25/270425.aspx
• http://www.jeffsandquist.com/PermaLink,guid,8651f710-98c2-4b1d-83eb-a1db2188e01e.aspx
• http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/11/16.html
• http://www.majornelson.com/blog/2004/11/thanks-for-memories-tivo.html
• http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000097020901/

I just purchased an Audiovox SMT5600 Microsoft Smartphone.  I'll keep updating this entry with the steps I use to set it up.

1. Install ActiveSync 3.8 (not the one on the CD)
2. Go to the smartphone site to setup corporate email
3. Setup passport for phone number and pin so it's easier to login - go to member services
4. Sync my phone with USB
5. Install Pocket Streets 2005
6. Order a bluetooth headset
7. Order a bluetooth dock for the pharos GPS I have
8. Order a Mini SD card

Observations:

1. Bluetooth sync doesn't appear to work.  Not a big surprise given the weak MS bluetooth support.

http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2005/01/microsoft_at_ce.html

http://beta.toolbar.msn.com/

After running the Google toolbar for a long time, I switched to the new MSN toolbar with desktop search on my work machine.  After using it for several weeks, I can attest that this is a great package of software and it's still only beta!  I'm now installing it on my home machines -- that says a lot as I prefer to run very clean and tuned systems at home.

Here's why I chose it over Google:

• Hotmail, Messenger and MSN spaces integration
• My MSN integration
• Form Fill -- finally, the web toolbar people are following Mac IE 5 innovations introduced in 2000!
• MSN search beta integration - this is on its way to becoming a serious Google competitor.  It's not there yet, but it's good enough for me to use it over Google now.
• Page viewer and highlighter for search terms
• Desktop search works as well or better than Google desktop search.  The Outlook integration is killer.

For a second year in a row I'm glad the previous year is gone.  2003 was hell for me thanks to school, weekly commuting to Seattle from SF for work, two new teams at Microsoft and my Haas MBA classes.  I thought 2004 would turn the page with school completing and me getting some traction with my new team.

Well, 2004 was better than 2003 but not by much.  I've never worked so hard in my life.  Those who know me will probably shudder at hearing that, given how hard I worked during the launch of WGTB at Georgetown.  60 hour weeks were looking like light duty last year.  If it wasn't for the quick trip to Italy with my family, short visits with family and friends and the launch of our MSTV product in Washington state, I probalby would have gone nuts.  Thank God I really enjoy the stuff I work on.

Then, there's the war, tsunami, sluggish economy, etc. to provide a gloomy backdrop for the year.

Here are my aspirations for 2005:

• Reclaim my personal life
• Get some more great people to work on my team
• Cook more
• Take care of myself and have more fun
• Volunteer
• Take a really long and restful vacation

I made some traction on these things in 2004 but it was either a late-breaking development or it was aborted due to varous reasons.

Here's to 2005 being what 2004 was supposed to be!