CTO vs. VPE

I was curious today about what technologists and high tech leaders think of as the differences between CTO role and VPE (VP Engineering) role at a startup. This blog post by Brad Feld has a good viewpoint. A key point: for up to 20 engineers, one person can play both roles. I would expect at 12+ engineers that someone with leanings towards VPE would have a Chief Architect and someone with CTO leanings would have a strong Eng Director.

Navizon vs. Google Latitude vs. Chiuhuahua pictures

Interesting article on TechCrunch about Google Latitude used for tracking down a stolen purse.  Re. the privacy issues with sharing location info with Google, Navizon Free version (downloadable app for blackberry, iphone, and many other phones) has a much more private approach for people who want to track down their phone but don’t want more.  Navizon’s “MobiFindr” feature taps into your phone’s SMS to TEXT you your phone’s location if you TEXT it a password that you preset. I haven’t gotten this working yet, but it seems a good alternative.

The TechCrunch story also reminds me of my Yahoo! colleague Ben Clemens’ very funny real-life story from 2006 when his phone was stolen off a commuter train. The phone was set to automatically upload pics taken to flickr and his blog, and guess what started showing up? Pics of the family, Chiuhuahua, and car. Much less practical but more fun that just getting your purse back!

How to deal with tailgaters

How should you deal with people who dangerously tailgate you on the road? Befriend them! Here’s what you do: wave to them. It works amazingly well about 70% of the time. The driver either drops back and stays back, or they go around you, or occasionally they inspire a smile when they shyly drop back and change lanes as if to hide.

About 20% of the time they don’t respond, and about 10% of the time the person is a bit aggressive when going around you, but that matches well to the 1 in 10 psycho factor (1/10 people are crazy).

Try it next time someone is too close!

Good article on new Y! CEO

I liked this article from ZDNet on the new Yahoo! CEO announced today.

Pizzeria employees save 13 years of tips for Costa Rica vacation!

Pizzerias my brother, Howard, owns & runs are closing today for a week to take 60 employees + families on a vacation to Costa Rica with tip money they have been saving for 13 years! Talk about a long-term goal.  See Flying Pie page about it and Fox 12 story.

Bem Clemens on mozilla ubiquity

My old Yahoo pal and one-man design think tank, Ben Clemens, posted this interesting piece on mozilla ubiquity as a potential ultimate social media tool. Check it out.

“Sure, thing!”

I recently sent a small request to an engineering leader in another team where I work at Yahoo!, and got this quick response:

Sure, thing.

An inadvertent comma puts me squarely in the cast of the Aadams Family!

how do people survive w/o a techie in the house?

Sunday night I noticed that our Tivo HD box had not recorded any new movies. I checked and discovered that the entire To-Do list was suspended, with a message next to each entry saying no shows found. But on clicking through, clearly there were lots of upcoming shows. Being a programmer gives me a high chance of solving these kinds of things quickly, because I can guess what the nature of the bug is. I went to the Season Pass page and reordered one of the shows to be above another show. Saved. And voila, the to-do list was repopulated.

A happy ending in just a few minutes, but what happens to all the other poor sobs who don’t have a programmer lying around? I assumed that Tivo had pushed some new software down, and sure enough, last night I had a message that I can now play YouTube videos on my Tivo. That’s cool, but for some I wonder if that’s all they can play without a lot of pain!

Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show

We rented Mr. Vaughn’s DVD the other night and went for a wild 30-day tour-bus ride with him + a host of comedians. An amazingly funny film – highly recommended.

The iPhone 3g goes “buh-bye”

I tried. I love the design. The apps are incredibly beautiful. But I can’t justify ~$1800 over two years for a phone whose battery doesn’t last a business day. Thus my iphone is going back shortly for a refund.

After about 8-9 hours it goes into “20% remaining” panic – that’s a death cookie. The treo I had before my blackberry did this, also, and the battery life will only get worse from here.

Also, although it’s amazing to listen to streaming Pandora audio on the freeway, the signature buzzing line noise goes on and off regularly – very annoying. I’m guessing either from 3g downloads of emails or as the device tries to find wifi for me. For that reason and also because it doesn’t have the 3-4 dedicated buttons of an ipod, it’s frustrating to use in the car.

Useful or fun “time killers” do seem to be the killer apps for iphone and other mobile app development. I like to check on current deals, used piano listings (craigslist, oodle), friends’ blogs, high tech industry news, etc, via google reader while standing in line or waiting for someone. Guessing the sweet spot is 30 seconds to 2 minutes per use.

Update: returned the iphone and wow, was it a pain at the Apple Store to do so. Don’t go before 10am, they aren’t “really” open and it takes a special employee to do the return. Took about 40 minutes for me, and they tried to send me home with a gift card because system had problem w/my (same) credit card.