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BuddyGopher is celebrating 3,000,000 unique away messages in the current live database. We're currently serving about 7,700 users who have entered more than 64,000 buddies into our scalable AIM® buddy array.
During peak hours, new away messages are collected at an average rate of three per second. This figure does not include the dozens of other database calls and buddy_ins, such as sign-ons and idle timings, that our server computes. Everything runs on a single dedicated server, hosted by the professionals at EV1.net, with expert PostgreSQL 8.0.1 administration by Marek.
My goal is to build a system capable of watching, in real-time, the on-line presence of five million buddies.
Do you have a website? I need your help! Please try out this unique web service. If you like reading away messages from your friends, please help spread the word.
BuddyGopher is an AIM profile link that helps you check your friends away messages.
del.icio.us/nickgray
The coolest thing these days is leaving long diatribes in your del.icio.us link descriptions. I try to write a few each day.
CollegeHumor.com : New Funny Pictures, Funny Movies, and Funny Hotlinks Daily!
Blatant friend promotion? Not this time. Funniest clip ever.Boing Boing: M.I.A. for intergalactic overlord
Wasn't that Telio commercial cool? Here's another video that knocked my socks off. via Boing Boing
Galang by M.I.A.
directed by Ruben Fleischer
Gmail - Inbox (4)
Maybe the first time this has ever been on the web? Telio's TV commercial see here on RWIR. Telio offers a Vonage-like European VoIP service. I chatted up their CTO after the Pulver VoIP over WiFi panel yesterday and it turns out he was one of the Skype codec authors! Really smart.MocoNews.net: mobile content news
Text of P Diddy’s Speech: Give Them King-Kong ContentRecently, I was talking to someone, and they mentioned the term MVNO, and not wanting to appear stupid, I waited a few minutes if I could figure out what it meant. I thought it was a new artist or something. But then I asked, what’s an MVNO? A mobile virtual operator, someone who sells the phone serviecs without actually owning the network. And I thought, you mean, you could sell a phone service without owning the network? I’m in the wrong business…and then, it dawned on me..I am an M V N O… and I might be the biggest.
What do I mean by that? I don’t have the spectrum, I don’t own the network infrastructure, I don’t make customer service calls, but I do have subscribers. I have tens of millions of them, subscribers, who spent billions of dollars every year on music, on fast foods, on cosmetics, on soda, and yes, on consumer electronics and wireless communications technology.
Live from CTIA
I am attending the CTIA Wireless conference in New Orleans on behalf of a super-secret Manhattan research organization. Due thanks go out to Steve B., who introduced me to this company, and Carolina Raasch, who is putting me up for a few days.
The company is super-secret because I don't know what they do. Their director obviously has credentials to get an Analyst pass at this relatively press-strict conference, so I'm not going to ask many questions. I will be note-taking on such exciting policy panels as Impact of Regulation on the Wireless Industy and Facilitating Intermodal Competition.
Sean "Puffy" Combs gave a pretty funny keynote speech this morning about Mobile Virtual Network Operators. MVNO is a hot, if overblown, acronym in the wireless industry now. It sort of means that anybody, even Puff Daddy, can start a cell phone company. No spectrum and no towers necessary- you just lease from the big boys. Like Jay Z, you get the impression that Mr. Combs rocked the music industry as a means to enter the corporate world. He's the real deal and definitely worthy of some respect.
Free coffee in the VIP rooms!!!!!
Konica Minolta Magicolor 2430DL review
This is the Konica Minolta Magicolor 2430DL. It's a color laser printer that outputs twenty black and white or five color pages per minute. It plugs right into our network hub and also has USB ports. We bought it at Office Max last week and paid $400, less some rebates = about $320. I wish I could take credit for this deal, but the maverick shopper here is my mother. Props, Mom! c|net review Ours had all four toner cartidges installed, otherwise the price would have been twice over.
Welcome to Gmail
I heard a good anecdote today about the tobacco industry. The source of this blockquote used to be a tobacco company executive.
My grandfather's tobacco company got put out of business by American Tobacco's sneaky tactics. His company was a regional roll-your-own-cigarette manufacturer in the South East. Their markets were North Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, etc. American offered to buy him out, but my grandfather was making a lot of money at the time and didn't want to sell.
When the big company couldn't buy his little company out, they started buying his product out. The American Tobacco delivery boys would come in to the grocery stores every Monday morning and purchase all of his brand tobacco on the shelves. Grandpa never knew this until much later, so it wasn't as easy as just re-stocking twice weekly.
What ended up happening was that American Tobacco would buy out our brand in the grocery store all around the region, and then our customers wouldn't have any choice but to buy another brand of tobacco. You couldn't find us in the grocery store because it looked like we were sold out! And that's terrible in this industry. You're not going to wait until next week to buy a product like tobacco- you're just going to pick another brand.
'American Pie' actress splitting from husband
sad breaking news followed by my shocking tell-all 'American Pie' actress splitting from husband. Shannon Elizabeth and Joseph Reitman were married in June 2002.
I was invited to Joe and Shannon's wedding after-party, held a few days after the family only official ceremony in Mexico. It was in a really nice Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood, and Paula Abdul was on the Guest List.
I can count the number of very serious screw-ups I have committed in my life. Attending Joe and Shannon's wedding celebration wearing an Olympic Sex Team t-shirt with bright yellow pants is definitely on that list. Somehow my parents found out about this a few months later and they bring it up every year like I am the big family fashion shame. Dressed in her beautiful white wedding dress that night, I got the opinion that Shannon felt the same way.
Here's the real story. Rick and Jake and I were all renting in the Burbank Oakwoods on undergraduate summer break. Because of my fan website work on American Pie and American Pie 2, I had already spent some time in the company of Joe and Shannon. Enough time to have crashed at their house when I was in LA a few months earlier, and enough time that I still talk to Joe every other week on email. Since Joe is the kind of guy who was happy to have some more people at his wedding party (he invited me, after all- and was quick to extend the invite to Jake and Ricky), we figured it would be OK to show up at his wedding reception with a few more friends. Two more, to be exact: My date, a cute brunette named Christine, and one of Ricky's television friends.
It turns out that Shannon wasn't so pissed about my crude, immature t-shirt. What really upset her that night was me bringing one guest in particular- Rick's friend Chris Wylde - An honestly hilarious person with a quick wit and a caring heart.. Chris was sort of famous, and I guess in Hollywood's celeb nouveau crowd it is a lot better to be not famous at all than just sort of famous. Upon entering the reception, Chris gave Joe and Shannon a "Happy Birthday" card with an autographed and ripped one dollar bill inside. Things pretty much went downhill from there, and Shannon served me a plate of icecubes when I congratulated her on marrying such a noble man. In my defense, RedBull was co-sponsoring the "event" and Shannon's assistant's guests were dressed in homeless-chic attire. In Shannon's defense, the RedBull counter was tucked away into a back corner of the restaurant, she donated the event sponsorship money to her charity, and the assistant was gay.
So that's my Shannon Elizabeth and Joseph Reitman wedding story. Joe continues to be one of the coolest guys that I sometimes have the opportunity to interact with, and I'm sure he is going to come out of this like a new man.
Related images: Nick Gray and Joseph Reitman and Nick Gray and Shannon Elizabeth, and Nick and Rick. Taken ~three years ago in Malibu. Updated- Another with Shannon.
I didn't realize how many talented AIM hackers are out there. My BuddyGopher away messages project has introduced me to a few of them, where we've gotten to talk lofty things about our OSCAR visions. Here's a short version of my instant messaging manifesto.
Nick Gray WFU
I feel like cell phones today are insanely imperfect. One thing I can always count on are the killer contact features in AIM. Things like BuddyList-only, warning levels and presence. I think we're going to see these feature sets come into the capacity of Always-On mobility from carriers like Cingular and Verizon and especially T-Mobile within the next few years. I believe that if there's any way to make money on the BuddyList today, it's in the development of the mobile/cellular BuddyList. BuddyGopher is a step in that direction for me.
The NT Daily - With Love, From a Rockstar
With Love, From a RockstarBeat asked and they answered: What are your Valentine's plans? via Joey 9th grade, Plano Texas represent!What I normally do is dress my cats up and have them act out a play called 'The World is Lonely.' So that's probably what I'll be doing this year.
- Peter Hofstad -
The Goodnights
Chip -- Send me the landlord's address as soon as possible! It's on the lease.
Les Posen's CyberPsych Blog
Did you know... that there are over two thousand (2000) commercial aircraft flying over United States skies? All the time.I think that reading away messages and using Caller ID have a lot in common. Both were initially met with a lot of resistance.
You're going to look and see everybody that called you, even if they didn't leave a message? You stalker!
or,
You're going to look at her away message, even if you aren't IM'ing her? You stalker!
I guess we eventually adopt the benefits that new technology offers us, but you can bet that GPS tracking on mobile network devices is going to face one heck of a brick wall.