If you have lots of applications on your computer and dont have enough room for all of them on your quick launch bar this is the application for you.  With a quick alt + spacebar you can simply type the name your application and you are ready to go.  No more hunting through a huge list of programs two, three, or four columns long trying to remember the name of the software development company.

Check it out: Launchy: The Open Source Keystroke Launcher

My brother-in-law’s band Smalltown Heroes has received there new first album from the manufacturer.

I may be a little biased, but the CD looks really nice and sounds even better. After all the time, hard work, and stress for Brian, Dallas, and Bethany it is great to see the final product. The only downside is that since the CD has been in progress for the last 2 years many of there newest (and best) songs are not on this CD. The only way to hear those is to head to one of there shows.

The CD release party is scheduled for Sept 27th, but you can you download the album here right now.

Last night my brother in law called asking some questions about Palms, calendars, and trying to keep schedules coordinated when he and his wife work in separate counties.

They have an older palm and were looking at the options for coordinating calendars.  I recommended Google calendars due to the ease in which you can share calendars between different people.

So i did some quick research and found a couple of good articles/blogs on how to sync your palm with gcal.  

How to sync Google calendar and Palm « Not Nurse Ratched

A Google Calendar Palm Pilot Solution

Syn Google Calendar with Palm

End result, if you are trying to sync via the cradle seems to be go with  CompainLink for Google (free trial available) or if you can access the internet with your phone/palm directly use www.goosync.com.

When the California Supreme Court ruled that non competes were not legal (see here) in California it made me start thinking.

If California home to Silicon Valley, the big boy of technology innovation can get by without non competes do we really need them in other places?

I understand the laws that prevent theft of property, patents, secret company plans, customer and similar items. In the end how enforceable are the non competes anyways. In Indiana were I live the courts have generally required the company enforcing the noncompete agreement to provide an equivalent salary to the person until the non compete expires.

I have spent time on several occasions gathering information from a group of people whether it was a survey, obtaining comments, or just trying to get feedback on a new idea.

There are several different ways to do this emails, wiki,web form,  survey from either a free host or self host option.  All these options have pros and cons, but the biggest downside being that except for email (with its obvious pitfalls) you need to have a reasonable level of techincal skill to make them work.

This means that I have to do a lot of handholding and supervising when others want to use it.  Well here is a new solution from Google.  As part of there google docs offering you can create a web form based on a spreadsheet.  The data is automatically populated and ready for review/analysis as soon as people hit submit. 

Here is a great video/explanation on how to use the product.

Official Google Docs Blog: Featured video: quick and easy forms

I regulary read Coding Horror a blog about programming and related business topics.  On the most recent blog entry On Our Project, We’re Always 90% Done  a number of great ideas about project management, software books, etc were mentioned.

However, a very interesting article on team compensation was mentioned written by Mary Poppendieck, it can be found here.

Not sure exactly how this applies to my current job immdeatly, but learning to be a manager compensation is always an item for discussion.

As many of you know I really like coffee and drink a fair amount each day. Probably close to 10 cups on average. I was reading a NY Times article that was listing all the myths, misunderstandings, and actual benefits to coffee You can check it out here.

Bottom line from this article and a few others I have read. Coffee is not a wonder drug, but it is also not terrible for you health. It will make you a little bit more alert, have a few limited positive impacts on your health, and isn’t likely to give you cancer.

Well, all this is true until the next study comes out:)