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I caught this when I was hanging out waiting for my wife to finish some shopping at the Fujinomiya Jusco in central Japan (JUSCO @ Wikipedia) … Kid starts throwing a tantrum and the mom says if you don’t stop crying I’m going to leave without you. I’m thinking at that point, some things are universal and that’s exactly what an American mom would say. Then the woman surprises me by walking out…

She left the kid crying there on the floor of the entrance to the department store, and walked out to the parking lot. She proceeded to go get the car and drive it up to the front…

Wish I had all that on tape, but I was so shocked that the woman left that I turned off the camera and kind of sat there dumbfounded, wondering if I should help the kid; I didn’t want to turn away in case the kid runs out in traffic after his mom…

A couple of passersby looked over at me like why are you letting him do this, it was my kid; all I could do is shrug my shoulders to let them know he wasn’t mine. One woman went looking for a store manager…

Eventually the mother returned, dragged the kid to the car, and that was that…

Having a drink at the wonderful Gotemba Kogen Resort. Onsite microbrewery… A fine place to spend an afternoon… Especially since the day we were there was the day they recorded their 6 millionth visitor, and thanked the customers by dropping off a 3 liter bottle of freshly brewed Pils. No, thank you!

Wouldn’t you have loved one of these if you’d had one at your park? This movie shows a rip line for kids at our local park in Fijunomiya, Japan.

Dave Winer wrote today:

Alan Kay once said the Macintosh was the first computer worth criticizing. Jean-Louis Gassee said that as the monkey climbs the tree, the more people can see his derriere.

The first quote especially is something to think about when your customers criticize your service or product. They are telling you your product is worth criticizing. Your customers believe it is worth their time to provide you with feedback. That’s a gift, take it and be thankful…

Trying to find out if BlogHarbor blogs are being blocked in mainland China…

If you know anyone in mainland China, can you ask them to try accessing this blog or any of the blogs on our list of Recently Updated BlogHarbor Weblogs?

We had reports of being blocked sometime in spring 2005, but later in the year and up until recently we’ve had users in mainland China as well as Hong Kong… But one of our bloggers is now reporting being unable to access any BlogHarbor site…

Any information would be appreciated! If you can help us determine if we’ve just been blocked and if the block is by domain name or IP address (do any of the blogs on our recently updated list which use their own domains get blocked?), I’d be most grateful and appreciative.

Great post by Tom today, Just A Couple Of My Terrible Blunders. Tom gives a couple of examples from his past about mistakes he’s made as a sysadmin or when communicating with partners or customers.

I probably ask too many questions these days. I suppose when you’re comfortable enough to ask questions, indicating that you don’t know something, the things you do assert become more believable, even from a bag of hot air like myself.

Blundering is one thing, but not learning from your blunders is another. Being able to laugh at them comes later.

Missed this last week (Oct. 29) from the Stars and Stripes, Army steps up efforts to monitor military bloggers:

A new Army effort to monitor soldiers’ personal Web sites is raising concerns among military bloggers, who worry the service is discouraging the online community’s positive efforts.

Since July a new 10-man branch of the Virginia Army National Guard’s Data Processing Unit — a team of guardsmen trained in security issues — has been surveying the Internet for the Army, looking for online postings that might violate operational security standards.

The group isn’t reviewing things like soldiers’ e-mail accounts, but it is looking at blogs and photo-sharing sites like myspace.com.

From Media Buyer Planner: Another feature [in the upcoming Skype 3.0] allows users to set up text-based chats with up to 100 web users, whether they use Skype or not; it mirrors Skype’s group audio feature, called Skypecast. The public chat feature can be embedded into blogs to encourage conversation.



Sounds interesting… I’d bet that becomes quite popular…

Des Walsh was speaking at a convention today:

What I hadn’t planned for was the keenness of the people for me to show them how to actually set up a blog.

I took up the challenge and opened the BlogHarbor site. Five minutes later, they had a site up, with their first post - no need to futz about with credit cards, confirmation of emails, no special geeky knowledge required, no configuring databases…

The effect was so positive and the people so enthusiastic about the possibilities, that I know I just have to make sure I include this process in any future presentation.

Awesome - a big thanks to Des for showing how you can get blogging in 5 minutes!

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