I took a trip to the Mac store today to pick up something for RD2. It’s like stepping into another world. You know what I might just miss most about my Mac here at RD2 when I head back to school in a few weeks? My Dashboard.

Less like bookmarks and more like toys, widgets continue to fascinate me. Whether aesthetic or functional, I can’t help but get a kick out of them. I did have to restrain myself from installing a crossword or sudoku puzzle, for fear that my actual work might suffer, but I love my hula girl (she dances on mouse-over).

I’m sure this is all very old hat for long-time Mac users, but I will remind you that I am not (exactly) among such users, so indulge me.

Dashboard Top 50 from Apple.com

Man, it’s hot today.

Major US newspapers have a circulation in the neighborhood of 280,000.

The population of Iceland is 280,000 (not counting Bjork, who lives on Mars).

In 2003, Hyundai sold 280,000 cars in Europe.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (the largest stadium on earth) holds
280,000.

Everyday, 280,000 people use MySpace for the first time.

Dubbed “the ultimate online social-networking mash-up,” this monster of the free-for-all web is looked down upon by most of the “serious” web community. It is admittedly poorly constructed, poorly maintained, and looks unbelievably bad most of the time. Somehow, it has charmed its way into the browsers of millions and millions of people.

Presently, MySpace has 80 million profiles (give or take). That’s well over a quarter of the US population. Their page views have been in the top 5 for the US for the past year.

In their recent article on NewsCorp’s acquisition of MySpace, Wired puts the lumbering giant in some context:
“Back in 2003, half of the VCs in Silicon Valley were chasing the idea that the Web could connect people to one another, rather than to information. It took a couple of Los Angeles hipsters to give that abstraction a serious viral form.”

Last year NewsCorp bought MySpace for $580 million. That means founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe could easily celebrate by buying matching Ferrari 599 GTBs. Current asking price: $280,000.

Yesterday, the 100th post was posted on the internal blog!

RD2’s internal blog (aptly titled “shhh!�) is a place on the internal server for us (RD2ers) to post and share with the rest of the office. The blog contains “To do� posts, pictures, jokes, tips, and topics for (most always) friendly discussion.

I like to use it to get the team’s opinion on current web issues. These are all really sharp people, and the internal blog is my favorite way (with a heated debate over burgers at Record’s (aka The Record Grill) coming in second) to get them all sharing from their different perspectives.

Here’s to hundreds more!

I just watched Floyd Landis cross the finish line on the 17th stage of the Tour De France. I heard today was amazing, but you just have to find a way to see this race. Today, Floyd Landis rode the single most impressive stage in the Tour De France I have ever seen. Floyd was away all day long, by himself. He was completely possessed. Everyone was counting him out after losing ten minutes in the GC yesterday. Now he is within 30 seconds of the yellow jersey. Floyd was brilliant on the climbs and a genius on the descents. Using every millimeter of the road to carry maximum speed through every corner. Today Floyd unleashed his “Shock and Awe.”

Last night, as I was attempting to convince a friend to set up a Wordpress blog, I noticed under the Wordpress “Notable Users” page sat our very own Nuts About Southwest Blog!

From Wordpress.com, under “Why Blog?” there is a link titled “All the cool kids are,” which leads straight to the Notable Wordpress Users page.

The Southwest Blog is Under “Big Companies,” among the likes of About.com, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

It’s very exciting to see all the buzz surrounding our work!

I just returned from vacation in South West Texas. The bike stayed home. Today I hit the road around 6:00 pm for the first time in a week. The bike felt great, but it was unusually hot and after a few short miles I felt almost completely paralyzed. So, a quick call to time and temperature revealed that it was 106 Degrees. Gotta love outdoor sports in the Texas summer!

We arrived at South Padre Island last night for summer vacation. The Nikon D50 was great for taking a few shots as the day ended on the beach.

I am taking a few days away from my training regimen lately. It’s been a long ride, but I am spending some time away with the family and plan to come back on the attack!

I’ve always admired the way Mac turns its consumers into “brand evangelists” (the textbook term for the most intense form of brand loyalty).

Until RD2, my Mac experience peaked with Oregon Trail at Pinkerton Elementary school. I have since warmed up to Macs some (I even installed iTunes to use with my Motorola SLVR L7 phone, and have yet to have anything detrimental happen as a result).

Thanks to Brandon, I am currently previewing life with Apple’s Mighty Mouse.

The conversation went something like: “I want you to get a full preview of the cool accessories before you decide.” (Evidently they’ve already converted Mike to Mac.)

The mouse is pretty neat (I think I like the sideways scroll best), but I don’t see myself switching over to Mac any time soon (much to the chagrin of a few of my co-workers).

On behalf of marketing aficionados everywhere, I appreciate the persistance.

Yesterday at RD2, more fancy new chairs arrived. These chairs will move with us into the new space, and will ensure that no clients or RD2ers wipe out in the middle of meetings. (With the previous chairs, leaning forward was often a danger).

We had four chairs and four volunteers (the rest of us supervised), and after a few laughs (and a blatant disregard for the enclosed directions), the chairs were assembled in no time.

Last night I set up RSS feed reader software (which I personally like better than a web-based reader) on my computer at home.

At work I’m on a Mac, but my heart remains with that little Dell desktop waiting for me in my bedroom when I come home after a long day.

Off to find a PC RSS reader, I stumble across (err… use Technorati to find) two options. Eeny-meeny-miny-moe, and I download the 30-day trial of Feed Demon at 7:45 PM. It says it’s the most popular PC RSS reader. Here goes nothing.

Setup is no big deal, but I don’t know if I love the interface. I like to see the full entry (including pictures), not have to be sent to the site to see it. Why do you think I installed a feed reader when I have a browser with a bookmark function?

Also, once I read entries it deletes them completely. I don’t know if I like that, especially when I’m parusing flickr pictures over and over (or obsessive-compulsively checking how my own site looks in the reader every ten minutes).

Then, the test. Will my OPML file from the Mac import easily?

I think I did something wrong. It’s not recognizing the .opml file as a .opml file. Or maybe it’s blank. Either way, I add a few feeds by hand and elect to try sending it again from work tomorrow.

8:00 PM - Fifteen minutes later and I give up. I’ll try again tomorrow. …sigh.

Suggestions to help me find the PC feed reader of my dreams are more than welcome.

On another note, RSSOwl is closing on its own more and more frequently. It seems anytime I navigate away from the pure text form of a post, within a minute or so RSSOwl has some sort of issue. The major annoyance is that it loses the data of what I read during my session. When I open it back up, everything remains unread. Not enough for me to give up on it just yet, especially if it means giving up that wonderful interface.