You can eat cash flow

If you invest in great people, you have a good chance of making money. In the current market there are gifted entrepreneurs that will benefit and thrive. These people will start disruptive companies that look for what will be hot rather than what is hot. They won't be lumped into the Web 2.0 category; they will define their own categories. This is what will separate the few winners from the many losers. - Todd Dagres

Check out the interview on WSJ.com with David Hornik and Todd Dagres on whether or not Web 2.0 is "another bubble" along with perspective on where we are today.

I really hate my Nikon Coolpix S9

Ok, I've given my new Nikon Coolpix S9 digital camera a month of constant use and I've decided that I really don't like it. I've had a lot of cameras over the past 20 years since I first began a career as a photojournalist. A Nikon fan since my first FM (which I still own and it still works), this model doesn't cut it.

Here's a picture shot in "Auto". It was the third in the sequence of six blurry shots.

Sad. That was a funny moment.

(If you have to know, my wife and I traded photos of our Christmas presents instead of the gifts because we were visiting in Alabama and traveling by air. I photographed and gave pictures of the wrapped gifts instead of the unwrapped gifts. After the laughter wore off, I gave her the pictures of the unwrapped presents.)

Here is a photo taken on "Auto" outside at about 3 p.m. in the afternoon. I was standing still. The little sailboat was moving, but not that much!

I'm going to keep the camera because it is very small - my top feature at the time I bought the camera - and based on confidence in my experience, in cases where I absolutely need a good photo, I'm pretty sure that I can adjust the settings and hold still enough to make a usable image. However, I wouldn't recommend this camera to anyone.

When I want a digital image and it counts, I'll stick to my Nikon D200 or my wife's old Canon Elph.

RC Laser sailing in Alabama

RC Laser sailing in AL, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

I checked my RC Laser on my Delta flight last Friday night and sailed it for the past 3 days on Lay Lake in Alabama. Winds on Saturday were very light, giving me a first chance to get the hang of all of the controls and rigging on the boat.

On Chrismas day, winds were in the low 20's with gusts to 30. The flattened "C" rig did great! The effects of the sail trim seemed more pronounced with the small sail and big wind. What fun!

Now I just have to figure out how NOT to turn the boat into a submarine going downwind in that heavy air!

Wi-Fi Phone for Skype from Belkin

Mobile phone roaming costs getting to you when you travel?
Here's a Skype phone from Belkin that lets you make free unlimited phone calls over Wi-Fi networks using your Skype account. Purchase the Skype phone at Amazon.com.
The list price is $179.99 but this unit is currently on sale for $159.99.
Comments from customers:

• "My ROI is about 6 months so its not so bad."


• "...it's cool and I've bragged about it to a few people, which hopefully enhances my reputation as cool phone guy."


• "...if you are always on the go, and a wi-fi network is available to where you are going, than this phone is for you!"


• "I am in love with this Phone!!"

Related: Netgear Wi-Fi Skype phone.

IYP searches gain substantial ground in 06

I've added Dick Larkin to the list of people that have blogs I'll watch regularly. Actually, Dick has been sending out such a great newsletter, that I have only infrequently visited his blog but have read every word of the newsletter for the past few years, since I published the Star Directory in Fredericksburg, VA.

IYP searches are growing rapidly. Dick's top two rules for advertisers in IYPs:

1. Make sure you are at the top of the list for your primary search terms in your service area. Internet Yellow Pages are linear in nature, meaning that users start at the top and work their way down. They also tend to be much more structured than typical one box search engines.

If you can't afford to be in the top 3 search results, don't waste your money.

2. Users of IYP sites tend to be further along the buying cycle. So a click or an impression on an IYP is inherently more valuable than that of typical web search.

Pay more, get more.

If you are advertising in or selling into a local IYP ("I" for the "Internet" version, not necessarily the "independent" version), visiting the YPCommando blog regularly is a must.

Blog Tag: 5 Things You Don’t Know about Me

Oh great! Jay Small just blog tagged Howard Owens, Jack Lail and me. Just what I needed after a night of Christmas shopping!!
Here goes...

• In the early 90's, I was an "expert" source on several stories published in the Weekly World News.


• My iPod has nearly 8000 songs and I actually own almost every CD including all of the titles by Billy Joel, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan.


• I was a frequent flyer on the Trump Shuttle.


• I've owned a lot of vehicles in my life including 3 jeeps, 2 TranAms, 5 pickups, 1 SUV, 7 cars and as much as I hate to admit it, a minivan.


• I programmed my first computer game 25 years ago on a VIC-64 and saved it on a cassette tape drive.

Tag: Melinda Gipson (link to follow shortly), Jason Young and WickedLocalGirl (WLG, I'm emailing this to you so you have to tell us your blog url now :)

Crocs Islander

Crocs, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

I'm not sure I'd wear my new Crocs Islanders on the wet deck of a boat because they are super-slippery on wet floors and pavement, but man, they are comfortable!

Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

Well, I'm a proud owner of both a one design remote control Laser model sailboat (above) that is a quarter-scale of the "real" Laser sailboat I raced 15 years ago AND now an Adventure 14 (pic is the 16 foot version) built by Mad River Canoe.

Here's the short version...

My wife and I drove down to Mendon, NY to check out a kennel where we'll be boarding our dog Maxine this coming weekend over the Christmas break and after the visit we decided to ride around the park directly behind the business. In the park we found a lake called the Hundred Acre Pond.

I had my new remote control Laser model sailboat in the back of the truck and after checking the depth of the water, I decided to give it a quick dunk in the drink. This was the model's first sail.

The wind was blowing steady at about 11 knots. There were few waves. It was barely raining. The temperature was in the mid-50's.

I checked the water depth, then set everything up after choosing the "B" rig and then tested the transmitter and servo, tuned and trimmed everything and set the boat off in the water at the end of the floating boat dock.

Man that boat is fast on a broad reach!!!

The bad news is that she did not respond to any commands from the transmitter at all. She sailed directly across the pond and got hung up in the cattails on the other side. For several hours, we attempted everything including brief contemplation of wading through about 200 yards of muck and brush to get the boat. That wouldn't have worked.

Emergency plan #1 - go rent a canoe for a few hours. We left the boat and headed back into town. The problem with this plan is that it is December in western New York and no canoe rental place is allowed to rent canoes because they don't carry insurance for people in the winter months when usually there is ice and snow all around.

Always have a backup plan. Plan #2 called for us to quickly head home to Fairport and pick up our foul weather gear then drive over to Oak Orchard Canoe and Kayak on the south end of Irondequoit Bay and bought the Adventure 14 and a couple of wooden Loon paddles. A quick stop by West Marine for two PFD's and we were on the way back to the lake.

After about 4 hours of running around and collecting all of the emergency gear and finally paddling for about 20 minutes to get to the sailboat, we retrieved it and headed back to the truck.

Everything and everyone is in one piece, but just like our first "real" sailing adventure on our Alberg 30, Sabrina years ago, we now have a tale to tell about our first remote control sailing experience!

Maxine says, "Are you serious?"

Are you serious?, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

No, I'm not going to write about every snowflake, but last night was our first measurable snow. In the Village of Fairport, NY we received about 4 inches and they are calling for 2-4 more. Lake effect snow, "they" say.