At first sight, the green field above looks pretty flat, but upon a further look, you'll see the dip. Now if you have been here before, you'll know that there's a HUGE valley in front of the trees... So too today in Philadelphia it appears the "Digital Divide" has closed between The Suburbs and the urban areas. I don't believe it. Our High Speed internet prices will continue to rise because of the current wifi situation. Yes it still functions, but the service has NOT reached it's full potential and Earthlink customer service is abysmal...The latest news is that Earthlink will eventually leave with "Wireless Philadelphia" left to fend for itself. WIMAX in Philly is being flirted with but until these other services establish themselves, and cause competitive pricing, the technology gap will continue. What do you think? Please subscribe...

Just did a mix/blend job for one of my amateur radio sources. Here he is in his heyday.--> Been thinking about my former production techniques and how I should proceed in the future. Clearly there is a difference between the "cookie cut" beatmaker and the "Producer" who gives an Artist an outline to work with but adds and removes in the studio. I've been told my style of poems, lyrics and apparently music making is too deep or complicated. I'm left-handed so I leave room for adjustments in a recording. If I'm given a pre-made beat, after and during vocal recording I chop, add samples and play in between the track I was given. That's how I work. I've been known to give artists just a bare bone drum track so I can build everything around the vocals. That's me. I've made beats with just a looped sample to give to artists. Now I know that in the studio the finished product won't sound like what I gave them, but I don't tell them that. Why would I? Shouldn't they make the beat their own so I can tailor it to them? Maybe thats my problem. I expect a vision from the artist. I like music. The way it flows, stops, changes directions and come back to it's beginning. I'm a circular guy. Maybe I should give each artist I decide to work with a speech about my Studio intentions. I can't expect a stranger to "trust" me. Who am I? There's no awards on my wall... http://myphillynetwork.com/content/no-awards-my-wall

No, this isn't DeJa-Vu. Due to a mysterious "Sam" commenting on my Social.im article, I'm now compelled to investigate about this other IM app for Facebook.
Now Yapper(that's what it's called) definitely installed quicker and smoother than Social.IM. Being based on Java, it managed to keep it's native color instead of matching my current XP theme. For some strange reason on the website I invited 10 friends(sorry guys,you know who you are),but when the standalone launched,it showed me all of my friends with an "add me" button just like Social.IM. One HUGE difference is that I get a lot of "info pop-ups"from Yapper. I like that and even though I don't plan to join the built in chat rooms,it' cool to see the traffic...Sorry Making the band 4 is on...I'm back, um yeah so overall since I forced my contacts to join Social.IM first, I'll probably stick with it even if Yapper does have more bells and whistles. Sorry Sam...

Hmmm... At www.Techcrunch.com 's request, I tried www.Facebook.com 's Social.IM. It's still kinda buggy. I installed it to my XP laptop first and it had trouble automatically logging into facebook. It reminded me of setting up a network, if the sequence was wrong it just hung. First I tried to log in to Social.IM while already signed into Facebook. That didn't work. Then I logged out of Facebook and signed into Social.IM...No go. So I went back into Facbook THEN signed into Social.IM and the app fired up under Facebook's app page. After that the actual program kicked in and that part was done. Strangely it had me select friends to invite like three times from the webpage, but the stand alone app still wanted me to "click to invite" my friends... I probably won't put this on my VISTA laptop if it was this annoying on XP. I guess I won't know the other half(the actual instant messaging side)until some of my friends install Social.IM too... Befriend me so we can figure if this will be the next "killer app"...

Wow, Some people can't extract good points out of Flamboyant Answers. This is a problem many have with www.Mahalo.com creator Jason Calacanis. Why do I care? I don't, but he's a Very Hard Worker from the East Coast tearing up the West Coast Silicon Valley. Sure he likes to say stuff for shock appeal, but HE'S FROM NYC the media capitol of the World. He's trained to hit nerves,sift out the weak and attack. Not his fault, really. Blame the game.

www.Techcrunch.com has a storm brewing between it's reporter and the owner. Seems to be a problem with points Calacanis made about starting a company. I won't bore you with the details but starting a company is a very hard thing to do. I for years produced music and wrote songs. I turned my basement into a studio and decided to pick up some "partners" to start a production company. Things were fine at first, we're all human so physical mistakes are ok. Mental mistakes, though can kill a company and that's what happened. I blame myself for not finding people as hungry or confident about the product as I was. So I cut my losses and started a Computer Repair Company. Ran into the same problem, I was bringing to the table more than my partner. That's not teamwork and I lost clients because of that. Now I run myself and I have more customers than I can shake a stick at. Why? because I believe in myself, I don't make mistakes I can't fix and I stay humble enough to pass off a job I can't or don't have time to do... Oh and Robert Scoble at www.scobleizer.com rocks for being on JC's side...

Came across a personal chef this week. As I was fixing his/her computer, we talked about the many Philadelphian celebrities he/she's cooked for. He/She's currently interviewing for a rookie Sixer's star, but it doesn't look good due to scheduling. I mentioned that to say how possible it is to have your own at home business nowadays. If you noticed, I didn't say "How EASY it is", I wrote how POSSIBLE it is. Clearly it takes hard work and years to get a good reputation, but once attained, business promotes itself. It's kinda like how long it takes to get even a 2 on Google pagerank. Bloggers know what I mean. You have to do/write quality work, promote yourself constantly and keep connections. Online business is like any other business. Nothing happens overnight and anyone expecting that should go to Burger King, they'll hire you on the spot!

Well I learned a lot having the Flu this week. For one,my job is a machine that can't be stopped. For two, theraflu rocks!!!! In other news, I came across a guy who bought his IT company. Sounds strange right? Usually you start off fixing your neighbors old Compaq and the word spreads about your skills. Later you grow a "professional" list of contracts only to grow tired of it and sell your company?!?! That's what happened here and I believe it was a mix of pure genius and timing! Besides making money online, what's the hardest part of starting a business? Getting business to business contracts. So Oxford Computers was sold to a younger(I assume),hungrier tech. His office was kinda small,with space for a receptionist/assistant and a work room full of MAC and WINDOWS computers all in line to be fixed. Business looked good, B to B looked better... I'm jealous.

Way before music downloads and Myspace, there was a cool group of people from teenagers to old men. What am I talking about? Amateur radio. That's what started our need to "social network" From truckers to guys in their room with parts from radioshack. They had "usernames" or rather call names and to this day I come across people with ham radios in the study.
This week after fixing a customer's computer,I was directed to his original setup. A computer with HAM/CB radios and (wait for it...)Windows 3.1. That's right,windows 3.1 people. He fired it up and it actually worked! He showed me all of the people he came across via the radio and how he logged it all in on the old computer. I've been told stories of how certain people would wash towns in radio waves just to show who was boss. Can't do that on Facebook. These are the fathers who taught their kids about transistors and tubes, the same things that started the personal computers. It was really cool seeing that link in technology up close. Hopefully we won't forget our humble beginnings...

In my line of work,I meet a wide range of people. Some tell me their profession and others don't when I try to keep the small talk going as I fix their computer. Tonite I hit the jackpot because he was a high school referee. They must have a club or something because when he spoke he seemed to represent the professional refs too. We discussed the Eagles and how Horse collar tackles are only illegal in the NFL. He also touched on how focused they have to be because if they turned to hear the athlete's plead their case,vital plays could be missed. That's why you see on TV the players talking to the refs but never getting eye contact. Funny enough he said he doesn't even pay attention to the coaches unless they call "time out" or call him names other than "SIR", LOL. Now that's being focused. Another good point came up when I asked him why does the refereeing seem different when playoffs roll around? He answered by mentioning how at that phase,only the good teams remain and usually they reached that level because they don't commit too many penalties to begin with. Good Point...