I had an article in the Missoulian upon moving back to Missoula in February of 2005, now Goomzee is gaining some press. Expect to see more announcements in the very near future as some exciting happenings are in progress. Below are photos of cover and article I took with my mobile phone - I’m unsure when their online version will publish.

Cover of In Business Monthly.

Page 1 of the Goomzee article - In Business Monthly

I am trying to come up with some ideas for some fun things to do outside of my normal itineraries. Similar to my idea about half priced events, it would be great if one could go online and get new ideas for something fun to do. I’ve looked at many of the events listing type sites, but they only show you what is going on with respect to a particular date and type of event. But, what if I just want something new to do that I don’t know about? It could be a place I’ve never been or something as simple as playing tourist and renting one of those three-wheeler scooters (something I’ve been meaning to do). Seems like this should exist (and I’m sure it does somewhere). My first thought was funthingstodo.com. Unfortunately, the owner hasn’t launched the site yet. If I owned it, I would set it up to be a craigslist type moderated list engine that provided a categorical list of fun events by location, type, cost, etc. Then people would have the ability to list their ideas (social moderation would keep it clean, fun and organized).

The weather is now in the 50s and climbing so that means I have to break out the rakes, shovels and sledge hammers and continue with the outdoor projects. This weekend Jamie and I removed the old brick planter in front of the house and build a new planter using retaining wall block - it turned out pretty nice - see the photos below:

After the sledge hammer work and hauling away the brick planter.

We leveled sand and wetted it for a solid foundation

Jamie heading out back for another load of blocks.

Our second row seems level so we then cut some blocks in half to fill in where we staggered the blocks. Jamie’s dad let me use is masonry saw which did the trick.

Now Jamie gets to pick the flowers.

The lawns starting to green back up and soon we’ll replace fascia, soffit and gudders. Then we move onto the back of the house.

The first of hopefully many businesses from the Great Falls Made In Montana Show (last week) has signed up for service. They signed up for Goomzee thursday afternoon and went live friday morning. Visit: http://www.montanasweetheat.com and see another Goomzee-powered online business.

Thanks Lora!

It’s been a while since I had to do this, but recently I had to look up how to remove those carat M (^M) characters from files I uploaded to a server. Here is a great article on exactly how below. In short, using VI or VIM editor type the following:

:%s/^M//g

* NOTE: to make the carat M, use CTRL+V CTRL+M not carat M.

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Here’s that article: VIM removing ^M characters

Friday I attended the Made-In-Montana convention in Great Falls. It was a great opportunity to meet with a group of merchants who can all benefit from Goomzee’s E-Commerce solutions. I was impressed with the City of Great Falls and their support of the convention. They even hosted beverages and a food cart and presented awards to some of the merchants.

I haven’t been to Great Falls for over 10 years and I couldn’t recall how nice the area is. Like Missoula, they have a River (The Missouri) running right through town. I didn’t spend a lot of time there, but definitely liked the city and their support of Montana businesses.

As I recently made the switch from my PC notebook to my new MacBook Pro, I had to install the proper software to replace those tools which I was proficient with on the PC in order to become productive. Tools I use include:

- Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, now Entourage)
- Adobe Photoshop w/ ImageReady
- Macromedia Flash
- BBEdit (Text Editor)
- Fire (multi-platform chat client)
- Skype
- Transmit FTP tool
- Apache Web Server
- PHP / MySQL
- Java / Tomcat

I have found some great resources online that help with setting up your Mac. Marc Liyange’s site, entropy.ch, is a great resource. In addition, I found mamamusing, a nice blog with some how-tos.

Installing Tomcat 5 on Mac OS X Tiger:
http://mamamusings.net/mt/mt-tb.cgi/758

I have one update to her tutorial, the chmod 755 command specifically. I believe that the chmod command should be /Library/Tomcat/bin/*.sh instead of /Library/Tomcat/*.sh and the startup script is also located in the bin directory.

I recently upgraded my mobile phone (Friday) and after much deliberation between the Samsung, LG or Moto RAZR, I went with my second LG phone. Even though multimedia features were not desired, of course you have to try them out. I was unpleasantly surprised to find that none of the marketable features worked. The problem-solver that I am, I couldn’t let that go. I scoured the web to find out all the tips/tricks to “hack” my mobile phone into compliance. I even purchased a 1GB mini sd card from Best Buy this afternoon and now I am going to store songs and movies on my phone (just in case).. Below is what I learned:

My software version: T81VZ06
- to find: Menu > Settings & Tools > 4 (system) > 3 (device info) > 2 (sw version)
- version xxxxx04 and later allow mp3 player

I have a 1GB SanDisc miniSD card

My PC: MacBook Pro (new mac notebook w/ intel duo core processor)

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Simplest Way to Enable Multimedia Features:
- buy a miniSD card 128MB or more (256 was $30 at BestBuy)
- buy a USB card reader (to attach to your computer - this way mac or pc) - I bought MobileMate SD+ ($22+ at Best Buy)

Enabling MP3

Menu
0
000000 (when the ?????? is displayed)
11 (Music Settings)
MP3 Enable

Formatting mini-SD (do this before placing card in any other devices)

Settings and Tools
4 (System)
4 (Manage Memory)
3 (Card Memory)
Options (lower right corner)
1 (Format Card) - your password is last 4 digits of your phone number

Enabling PLAY Shortcut Key (front panel)

Settings and Tools
1 (Tools)
3 (Shortcut Key)
2 (Play Key)
My MP3s

Ok. That is it. Now remove your mini-SD card, insert into your favoriate card reader and PC. Copy the MP3 files to the MY_MP3 folder on the mini-SD card. Insert mini-SD card back in to your VX8100 and enjoy all of your songs. To play them, hold down the play button on the front of your phone for 2+ seconds. You will see a song list and while playing a nice little equalizer display appears. You can also open your phone and the same display and controls are available.

I hope this helps you all out and good luck.

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I must say that as a Missoula native, and having all the efficient routes for getting around the city already embedded into my subconscious memory, I was very upset with the re-routing of Malfunction Junction (intersections of Hwy 93 [brooks st.], Russell St. and South Avenue). As South Avenue has always been an artery for my travels, it really forced me to reroute all my travels. I learned really quickly that I too am subject to resisting change but I recently accepted and adopted the new routing and I’m pleased.

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With the advent of the iPod and iTunes, everyone is trying to get into the game of providing instant access to video and music. The one point I want to make is that these companies need to rethink their pricing. I was in a hotel a few weeks ago and was shocked at how much it cost to play a movie on demand. I thought, “Do they realize I have a Netflix DVD in my bag and a couple downloaded movies on my laptop?” Pricing strategy needs to be focused on more. Quantity in this game is the goal.

Let’s take the above example and illustrate my point. If the hotel charges $6 to download a movie, and we assume that 10% of guests take advantage of the service, and you have 1,000 guests, that’s $600 in revenue. Now, change the price to $1 per movie, which would drive more usage. Assume that 80% of guests play a movie on demand (many would start movies that they didn’t even intend to finish at $1). At this rate, you make $800 a 33% increase in revenue (break-even is 60% adoption of service per guest). As you can see, changing the price can have a dramatic effect. Now, this is all basic pricing strategy taught in every business school, but why am I seeing these overly priced services. I mean come on, I realize that Apple has sold over a billion songs via iTunes, but I wonder how many songs would have been purchased (rather then pirated) if the cost was $.25?

As I walked to the grocery store today, I thought again about the infamous meter maid. It dawned on me that as these metropolitan wi-fi networks are deployed, the city could leverage this network to provide many new services that could either increase revenue for the city or lower costs. One thought is to change the meters to take a credit card (or some form of future electronic payment). The meter could validate the card through the metro wi-fi network and run off a solar panel and battery. They already have an electronic parking meter for the cellular networks, but I’m guessing that a wi-fi version would be cheaper.

Also, imagine all the outdoor vendors that could process credit cards through mobile devices. Making the Internet ubiquitous should prove interesting.

The following is a list of resources I regularly track to gain insight about the latest and greatest.

• Business 2.0 magazine
• CIO magazine
• Council on Foreign Relations
• The Economist
• Foreign Policy
• Forrester
• Gartner
• Global Services
• National Public Radio
• Services Outsourcing World magazine
• Wall Street Journal
• Wired magazine
• Wireless Week

• FierceMarkets daily industry monitors
• International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP)
• neoIT
• Outsourcing Center
• Sourcingmag.com