Hashemian Blog Web Tools, Financial Markets, Technology Tuesday, February 28, 2006 Google Page Creator  We knew this was coming soon. Google recently released a new service, Google Page Creator, allowing users to create web pages and publish them on the Internet. What a surprise, the service is currently in beta. Does google have any products that are not in beta, other than their cash-cow search engine, that is? I signed up for this service a few days ago, but as usual I landed on a page informing me that it had become too popular and they were slowly adding users. So I was instructed to wait for the invitation email before I could utilize the service. Great, I've been waiting on Google Analytics' invitation for months now. I never received that invitation, but somehow I was able to log in to the service a day later and give it a spin. At this point Page Creator is nothing more than a simple static Web page designer. There is a design page with some basic html design features to put together simple pages. There are also some design templates available to choose from. I believe users get a 100 Meg storage to create and publish their pages. The final URL of the published pages becomes http://XYZ.googlepages.com/, where XYZ is the name of the user's Gmail account name. I suppose this service was released in response to similar services from Yahoo and Microsoft. I wrote about Microsoft's Office Live in my last blog, which is basically a Web hosting deal. Office Live Basics (free version) gives users their own domain names with a number of email addresses which makes it more valuable than the current incarnation of Google Page Creator. One caveat of Google Page Creator is its URL convention. The first portion of the URL (host name) gives away user's Gmail address, something that might be undesirable to users as surfers (including spammers) can easily infer the site creator's email. As for usability, there isn't much wow factor in Google Page Creator, other than the fact that it's a Google product and users can get a published URL under the googlepages.com domain. Who knows if those pages would get special treatment from GoogleBot? Anyways, Google already had a similar publishing service with Blogger.com, and this blog is published courtesy of that service. Google Page Creator,google,yahoo,microsoft,office live,analytics,blogger,web publishing,html <Google Page Creator> // posted by rh 0 comments | Wednesday, February 22, 2006 Microsoft office live  Lately Microsoft has been in a rush to catch up with the cadre of online service providers that offer a bevy of online services. Google is one notable (albeit unlikely) competitor. It seems that every day it releases a new product or a major enhancement to an existing product that probably makes Microsoft shudder a bit. I was excited to try Microsoft office live when I received the email to test the beta version with an activation key. To be honest, the product (or service, in this case) turned out to be something different than what I had expected. Let me explain. There are three levels of office live to choose from. While they are all free in beta, the basic level is the one that would continue to remain free post-beta, so I opted for that. Registration was pretty simple. I was asked to choose a domain name, filled out some personal info, and gave a credit card number to verify my identity (the site assured me that there would be no charges). I was up and running immediately. But I wondered what I had just activated. My expectation was to get some light version of Microsoft office (you know, Word, Excel, etc.) where I can create, edit, share, and manage my documents online. Instead what I got what pretty much a web hosting service with a web site, some page design tools, email accounts, and some other trifles. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking Microsoft here, this is still a great deal as web hosting services go, if only for the free domain name (although Microsoft holds control and ownership of it). But this is far from the ASP (application service provider) utopia that I was envisioning. Perhaps I am partly to blame for having such lofty expectations. After all I didn’t really read much of the documentation or press releases associated with office live. I am still hoping that the real ASP features that I was hoping for are somewhere in there and I just didn’t see them. Or perhaps Microsoft intends to release these features sometime in the future. Until then, office live (at least the basic level I registered for) is probably just a test account for me, if that. I mean, I already have a decent web hosting service. microsoft,google,office live,asp,web hosting,domain <Microsoft office live> // posted by rh 0 comments | Sunday, February 19, 2006 Dubai runs US ports  Now that the Cheney's shooting incident has run its course in the media, attention seems to be focusing on the purchase of the British port operator by a Dubai company. The transaction means that the operation of six US sea ports would now be the responsibility of the new Dubai-based company. The specter of US ports being operated by an Arab outfit has many people worried about their safety, even though the sale was given the nod by the current republican administration. Law makers from both sides of the isle have been questioning the wisdom of such sale and the possibility of the terrorists using this avenue as a route to attack American interests. While I consider myself a liberal, mostly opposed to the republican ideology, I must assume the democrat's opposition to this sale is mainly partisanship nonsense. The world of economy is an international and inter-connected web of cooperation. Just because an Arab country invests in a US-based interest, it shouldn't signal ulterior motives other than business and profit decisions. The Dubai company was vetted by homeland security as well as other federal agencies before such approval was given. The security of these ports is in no way compromised as they continue to be monitored by federal entities. Therefore one must assume that most of the uproar is about political mud-slinging and muscle-flexing and little about security. If the administration had chosen to fight the acquisition, democrats would probably still question the administration. Politicians! ports,dubai,republicans,democrats,homeland security <Dubai runs US ports> // posted by rh 1 comments | Tuesday, February 14, 2006 Powerball lottery  It's an old tired statement, but why do people begin to care when lottery hits the $100 million mark? Isn't a mere $10 million enough? There was a time when I used to religiously play the lotto. That was years ago. A few times I hit the minimum payouts of $2 and $3 dollars. I believe once I had four out of six numbers with the prize of less than $20. Then one time, nearly 12 years ago, I got five out of six numbers and claimed somewhere around $2,600. I would have had a $2 million winner had I had one more number right. In those dreamy days, every time I bought a ticket, my mind was filled with the hopes of hitting the jackpot. I suppose a couple of dollars was worth the fantasy. But as the years wore on, and the reality of life and responsibility became a more predominant preoccupation, the magic withered, and with each loser ticket I lost a little more interest until there was no excitement left. It's a rare event if I buy a ticket in a month's time these days. Recently the Powerball jackpot began to reach a sizeable amount. It's around $300 million as of this writing. So when I given an opportunity to participate in an office pool, I just couldn't turned it down. I could only imagine how I would feel if I were left out of the windfall should one of those picks be the right one. Talk about a life-long depression. Today I made my third $5 investment in the lottery pool of about 20 people. I just hope someone hits the jackpot soon. I am going broke winning the lotto. powerball,lotto,lottery,jackpot <Powerball lottery> // posted by rh 2 comments | Sunday, February 12, 2006 Northeast snow  January's way above normal temperatures in the northeastern US made a mockery of winter, but February 12th was the day of reckoning. Snow started late Saturday night and kept pounding way into Sunday. We got about two feet of snow, as the picture of my deck shows. As strange as it sounds, shoveling is one of my favorite activities. It's a great workout and forces me to be outside breathing the crisp air. But this snow was even too much for me. I ended up using my neighbor's snow blower to clean out a part of my driveway before attacking it with the snow shovel. The kids joined me later on in the day and enjoyed some sledding and digging tunnels all over the yard. Snowfall might irritate some, but I consider it a part of northeast's beauty. Without it, winter won't be just the same. Soon winter will pass and spring will be here and I'll be out doing one of my least favorite activities, mowing the lawn. I wouldn't mind if winter stuck around a bit longer. northeast,snow,winter,snow blower <Northeast snow> // posted by rh 0 comments | Saturday, February 11, 2006 The Persian pride  I am a Persian American. While I cherish my adopted country, there is always a special connection to my native land I grew up in. On my last trip to Iran, a few months ago, I visited the ancient city of Yazd near the center of the country, at the edge of one of its large deserts. The city is also home to the Zoroastrian temple of fire, the ancient Persian religion before the Arabs introduced Islam to the land. As a student growing up in Iran (party in the post-revolutionary era), we had many lessons on how Islam was peacefully introduced in Iran and readily adopted by the Persians. Generally, young minds are shaped to be thankful to have been given the honor to grow up as Moslems. But like many things in life, facts are always twisted and bent to serve a purpose, in this case to make people feel blessed to have been given the gift of Islam. I don't intend to open up a discussion on the right or wrong of what happened in Iran centuries ago, but the truth is that the Persians most likely were coerced into accepting the Arab customs and religion and abandoned their traditions under the Arab sword. By some accounts in the early years of Arab invasion, Persians who would dare challenge the Arab rule were murdered, their cities were plundered, their culture hijacked, and their women taken as sex slaves. Most Persians today have traces of Arab blood. Their language is still Persian, but it is heavily influenced by Arabic, and their customs is a mixture of traditional Persian and Arabic traditions. Thankfully there is still a great deal of pride in Iran for their Persian heritage, as if to resist complete capitulation to the invading culture of so many centuries ago. Seeing the Zoroastrian temple in Yazd had a profound impact on me with some conflicting emotions. A sense of pride in my lineage, and sense of sadness in what was lost so many years ago. iran,persian,zoroastrian,islam,arabs <The Persian pride> // posted by rh 0 comments | Wednesday, February 08, 2006 Paying to spam  The war on spam took a new turn a couple of days ago with the announcement by Yahoo and AOL to charge senders a penny an email in return for guaranteed delivery. In this scenario companies wishing to send emails to Yahoo and AOL subscribers would pay a fee for their emails to bypass the providers' email filters and land directly in the users' inboxes. Unfortunately once again, the Internet crooks have hit our wallets. Slowly but surely the open Internet is going to become a playground for the rich companies with the rest of us relegated to the second and third class areas where seedy characters lurk and service is dicey. If you send an email to a friend's Yahoo account, your message is lumped with those of spammers and vetted through the company filters where it could get tagged as spam. But a well-heeled credit card company can buy its way to your friend's inbox and spam with confidence. I don't fault the providers for capitalizing on the current situation. I would do the same if I were in their place. With spam-fighting technologies such as SenderID and DomainKeys still languishing in standards and uptake quagmires, paying for email is a logical choice. But if this initiative proves popular, you can be sure that the price of emailing will only go higher as everyone would want a share. Judging by the Verizon's recently publicized wish to levy extra fees on search engines such as Google, your ISP might be the first in line to claim a piece of the spam privilege windfall. spam,ISP,yahoo,aol,google,email <Paying to spam> // posted by rh 0 comments | Monday, February 06, 2006 Siphoning gas  The world is full of strange phenomenon, and I am not just talking about the mysterious stuff only a few get to observe. Sometimes every day stuff can be intriguing just the same. Gravity is one example. I know the physics explanation of it, but ever wondered why an object exerts a force on other objects, and the bigger it is the larger the force? I know what keeps airplanes in the air (the air flow pressure difference over and under the wings creates an upward lift), but I still find it hard to believe that these giant machines actually lift off the ground and stay airborne. Today I was faced with yet another of these physical oddities, the siphon action. A couple of days ago I noticed a strong gas smell from the garage. Turns out that my bike, which is stored in the garage during winter months, has sprung a gas leak. I'm not sure where the leak is located (perhaps a loose hose) but I had to empty the gas tank somehow. So I bought a simple siphon pump from NAPA and siphoned out the gas, all along thinking to myself that the whole siphoning process is pretty amazing. At first glance one wouldn't imagine that the gas can actually travel upwards in a hose and come back pouring down into the gas can. I wonder if the first person who discovered this phenomenon was besides himself in disbelief. The whole thing seems almost magical. I decided to Google it to see what science has to say about it, and here is what I found. Wikipedia seemed to provide a reasonable answer. As the liquid rushes out of the long tube positioned lower than the container, the gravity pull on the column of liquid creates a force, pulling up the rest of the liquid like a chain. What keeps the whole process moving is the cohesion of the liquid molecules which makes them stick together like a weak glue. At least that was my interpretation of the explanation. Whatever the case, I am thankful for the siphon action. Without it, emptying the gas tank would have become a messy task. siphon,gas,gravity,physics,airplanes <Siphoning gas> // posted by rh 0 comments | Saturday, February 04, 2006 JetBlue  I had heard a lot of positive comments about JetBlue but had never flew them. That changed a couple of weeks ago when I flew JetBlue on business to Florida. I was impressed. Comfortable seats, friendly crew, and the tiny personal TV's for each passenger made my flight a fast and enjoyable one. Virgin Atlantic still has the market cornered with their in-flight entertainment. Great programming, on-demand movies, and games abound on those flights. Singapore airlines is another one with the amenities that I have enjoyed flying with. Within the domestic realm, Song (operated by Delta) also had personal TV's with decent entertainment and a collection of music albums to boot. I use the past tense for Song because, sadly, they are no longer in business. Based on my very limited observation, it appeared that JetBlue has a good model going, the flights (both directions) were full (a high load-factor is what all airlines strive for) and they won me over with their service, so I must assume they have good customer retention. So I was surprised when I read that JetBlue had reported their first quarterly loss in their relatively short history. You don't need to be an airline analyst to know that this is a tough business. Cut-throat competition and terrorist fears have contributed to the hard times airlines are faced with today. But in the case of JetBlue, oil appears to have been the culprit. Their failure to anticipate the rise in oil prices and therefore take precautionary steps in hedging their fuel, contributed to high expenses and thus the negative earnings. I hope they can ride out the storm and use this lesson wisely in the future. I'd hate to see them with the same fate as Song. jetblue,flight,airlines,oil,song,earnings,hedging <JetBlue> // posted by rh 0 comments |

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