Filed under: Books, On the Blogs, How To

Despite the fact that I grew up in a house in which my mom regularly canned jam, I find that most methods of canning and food storage to be mysterious and slightly intimidating. I have a fear that anything I can will end up infused with botulism and will kill my loved ones and myself. So I don’t can (fears don’t have to be reasonable). However, I am intrigued by the process and am in awe of people who tackle the task (especially when it includes the scary water bath portion).

It seems like these days it is becoming increasingly popular to can your own food, as it’s a good way to keep some of the summer bounty available for winter, especially if you are trying to eat a local diet. The Daily Green has put up a terrific and helpful (and fear calming) post, written by Alisa Smith of the 100 Mile Diet, chock full of tips and information about canning technique. It’s enough to make me put aside my fears, buy a case of jars, obtain a flat of tomatoes and start canning.

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Jeanne Jennings, email marketing guru and author of SitePoint’s The Email Marketing Kit, will be speaking at ClickZ’s event, ClickZ Specifics: E-mail Marketing, next Tuesday October 2nd at the Hilton in New York City.

“ClickZ Specifics: E-mail Marketing” is an intensive, one-day event designed to educate, inspire, and instill confidence in anyone using e-mail to communicate with their customers and prospects.

If you’re looking to get to grips with email marketing, grab yourself a ticket today!

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

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Filed under: Computers

The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is considering offering a contract to PRI (the Psychotechnology Research Institute), where a group of researchers claim to have developed software that can pick out terrorists and even train individuals to pick out terrorists — subconsciously.

The technology, called Semantic Stimuli Response Measurements Technology (SSRM Tek), is said to gauge a subject’s involuntary response to subliminal messages. Images are shown to test subjects who press buttons in response. SSRM Tek supposedly measures those responses and understands what the subject is thinking subconsciously.

One obvious application of the technology may involve security checks at airports. Based on subjects’ responses to the images and messages, “clean” respondents would be allowed through while “suspect” individuals would be taken through further testing.

Geoff Schoenbaum, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland, dismisses PRI’s technology, saying that modern neuroscience is just now trying to figure out how rats learn that a light can predict food. In reference to the idea of subconsciously sensing a person’s intentions, he said, “If we could do [what they’re talking about], you would know about it, it wouldn’t be a handful of Russian folks in a basement.”

From Boing Boing and Wired

Related links:

• Russia Tests “Father of All Bombs” on September 11th
• A Wheelchair Powered By the Mind
• Russians Build the Ultimate Squirt Gun

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Filed under: PlayStation Store

Wish you were here in Tokyo? Don’t worry, Sony feels your pain. That’s why today’s update includes a plethora of videos and wallpapers. Not to mention demos and the new Loco Roco sequel. Why aren’t they on the European PSN store? We know Sony are working on it. We’re fine with that. Honest. Regardless, here are today’s updates.

• Loco Roco Cocoreccho full game ($6.99)
• Skate demo (free)
• Stuntman: Ignition demo (free)
• Sega Rally Revolution demo (free)
• NBA 08 demo (free)
• Devil May Cry 4 summer 2007 trailer (free)
• GT5 Prologue Leipzig video (free)
• Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction video (free)
• Folklore trailer (free)
• Lair promo video (free)
• Lair “Going for the kill” video (free)
• Heavenly Sword demo (free)
• NBA 08 Free 6 tutorial (free)
• Loco Roco Cocoreccho trailer (free)
• Wallpapers

Four demos? A new game? Trailers galore? You lucky sods. Get downloading!

[Thanks Ciaran!]

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Ladies, have you ever been invited to a party and not known what to wear? Or gone to work but not wanted to take extra clothes and shoes for after work activities? Well, now you don’t need to worry, these shoes will ensure you’re always prepared:

High Tide Heels obviously represent the future of fun and fashion. I’m told this picture was taken in Belgium, but I think these shoes will certainly make a huge global splash in coming months.

Thanks Rico!

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For their next generation network, at least. Verizon will be eschewing EVDO revision C in favor of the GSM Association’s standard that is currently known as 3G LTE (Long Term Evolution). This move is most probably attributed to the fact that Vodafone will be implementing similar technology abroad, and hence the need for a common platform. So far, download rates of 100Mbps and upload rates of 50Mbps have been touted for every 20MHz of spectrum, but bear in mind these are just theoretical figures. Real life performance will definitely be a far cry from the numbers posted here. Take EVDO for example - I tend to get 500kbps on a good day, which is less than 25% of the theoretical 2.1Mbps advantage. This network is expected to go live in 3 to 4 years.

Permalink | Comment | Uberbargain | Uberphones

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Next big thing, Small business

True, Revver doesn’t have the mega brand of Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube. However, the site has made some online video creators happy; that is, $1 million has been distributed to them.

You see, Revver allows its users to share in revenues generated from advertisements.

True, it’s not a lot of money. But keep in mind that the online video market is still in the emerging stages.

To get some perspective on things, I had a chance to interview Suranga Chandratillake, who is the co-founder and CTO of blinkx. According to him:

“That’s really excellent news! This milestone points to the potential of monetizing video at the community level. For example, smaller publishers, smaller advertisers and the distribution on blogs and personal sites are making headway versus the big money, big brand, big content model that we hear so much about in the press.

“But, I think there’s a lot more to obtain by having relevant ads. Revver still uses untargeted, banner ads post-roll. I think that’s just the first generation of what’s possible with this growing market.

“I believe there is a problem that you have to use the Revver player. It’s a great player, don’t get me wrong and we have a partnership with them, but the fact of the matter is Youtube, Google Vid and Myspace Vid are all very popular and the content that is in those players probably won’t be able to move as quickly and easily.”

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

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Filed under: Rants and raves, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Serious Money, Stocks to Sell

When I look at Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) as I do periodically, I can not understand its valuation. I still have trouble with the valuation of Internet companies in general I suppose. Yahoo! closed yesterday at $24.95 per share and since it is one of our original eight blogging stocks it is on my watch-list.

During the course of the year I have read many buy (albeit speculative) opinions and it seems to stay in the news every day. But when I look at it as an investment I just cannot make any sense of it. There are many positive things I can think of about the company but a price-to-earnings ratio touching 49 is not one of them. It’s too high! (Jim Cramer makes a different evaluation in his earlier post.)

It’s nice that Yahoo! has no debt and I suppose if I wanted to speculate I would be encouraged that it is near a 52-week low. However this would not let me rest easy at night because I think that if earnings do not improve significantly it may be worth 35% less in the near future when others see what I see.

I see earnings that are weak and getting weaker. Yahoo! earned less in 2006 than 2005. In 2007 it earned less than 2006. As one of the prime pieces of web real estate this is not a good sign. Not only is Yahoo’s earnings poor, but what it does with the earnings are not good either. It has an ROE, ROA and ROI that average about 7.7. so it’s clear the company is not making a lot of money, nor does it know what to do with what it is making.

“Yahoo! Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2006 Financial Results: Net income for the fourth quarter of 2006 was $269 million or $0.19 per diluted share (including $56 million of stock-based compensation expense, net of tax, recorded under the fair value method) compared to $683 million or $0.46 per diluted share (including $11 million of stock-based compensation expense, net of tax, recorded under the intrinsic value method) for the same period of 2005.”

“Yahoo! Reports First Quarter 2007 Financial Results: Net income for the first quarter of 2007 was $142 million or $0.10 per diluted share compared to $160 million or $0.11 per diluted share for the same period of 2006.”

It may seem silly to discuss woulda-coulda-shoulda scenarios, but if it is true that Yahoo! had the opportunity to buy Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) for $1 billion and did not, then that’s just too bad. The funny thing to me though, is that, if Yahoo! would have spent billions of dollars more for a smaller part of the company in the first two years after the IPO, it would have been better off than investing in itself. This might be a lesson for many CEO’s. If you think I jest too much, Warren Buffett knows this all too well, and does it, but then he is the Oracle (not that other guy).

Speaking about “my pal Warren” gives me pause to remind readers that Buffett has a professed aversion to tech companies. His reason? They are much harder to assign value to. Considering that $3,4 billion (30%) of Yahoo’s $11.3 billion in assets are intangibles and that each acquisition adds to this by way of “good will” in the purchase price, valuation is much more questionable.

Last week Yahoo! Announces Agreement to Acquire BlueLithium, for $300 million in cash, This week Yahoo! Announces Agreement to Acquire Zimbra, for $350 million, but you will never see anything explaining the price of the purchase. Remember the old adage that it is better to have a friend who owns a boat then own a boat yourself? To paraphrase, it might be better to be bought by an Internet company then to try and be an Internet company.

Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is interested in Yahoo! at the right price and today’s price is not it. It is no doubt waiting for it to come down. So absolutely nothing I can see makes Yahoo! worth its current price except to those who want to speculate about what might be, and if you think different I would love to be educated.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He is on the advisory board of Internet start-up CircleBuilder.com.

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Comedy, Horror, New Releases, Games and Game Movies, Box Office Predictions

No huge surprises in last weekend’s box office returns. Jodie Foster’s new thriller took the lead with slithery CGI serpents bringing up the rear at number five. Superbad is definitely getting some McLovin’ after being in the top five for five weeks now. Here are the numbers from last weekend:

The Brave One: $13.4 million
3:10 to Yuma: $8.9 million
Mr. Woodcock: $8.7 million
Superbad: $5.1 million
Dragon Wars: $5 million

This weekend we’ve got three new releases, plus two more flicks going into wider release. Check it out:

Good Luck Chuck
What’s It All About: Dane Cook plays a man cursed. Every woman he has ever slept with has found true love with the next person they meet after dumping him. Now that he’s in love with a woman played by Jessica Alba he has to find a way to break the curse.
Why It Might Do Well: Judging from the trailer, Ms. Alba spends at least part of the film in her underwear. Not a bad thing.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The plot synopsis and all the pratfalls in the trailer remind me way too much of Three’s Company.
Number of Theaters: 2,500
Prediction: $10 million

Resident Evil: Extinction
What’s It All About: Milla Jovovich returns as Alice, kicking zombie butt in the Nevada desert and taking on the evil Umbrella Corporation in this third installment of the video game-based franchise.
Why It Might Do Well: Halloween’s success at the box office showed that people are up for a good scare, and for my money I’ll take a zombie flick over a slasher movie any day of the week. I’m even willing to overlook my lukewarm feelings about Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The list of crappy movies based on video games is a long and sad one.
Number of Theaters: 2,700
Prediction: $22 million

Sydney White
What’s It All About: Amanda Bynes stars in this modern take on Snow White, playing a college student who after being rejected by the sorority she hoped to join is taken in by seven dorks.
Why It Might Do Well: Bynes has a great sense of comedic timing. If you thought The Amanda Show was just for kids, you might be surprised at how intelligent the humor was.
Why It Might Not Do Well: It’s basically a teen comedy, and Superbad is a tough act to follow.
Number of Theaters: 1,900
Prediction: $7 million

And, although these next two opened last weekend, they’re both spreading out into a greater number of theaters:

Across the Universe
What’s It All About: A musical love story that takes place in the turbulent 1960s set to the music of The Beatles.
Why It MIght Do Well: It looks downright trippy, and it’s got Beatles tunes. What’s not to love?
Why It Might Not Do Well: It’s not a huge release so this won’t make the top five.
Number of Theaters: 400
Prediction: $2.5 million

Eastern Promises
What’s It All About: David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen, the director and star of A History of Violence, re-team for this thriller. Naomi Watts plays a London midwife who comes into possession of a diary that could be dangerous for Russian mobsters.
Why It MIght Do Well: After their last collaboration, I’m dying to see what Mortensen and Cronenberg come up with.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Oh, don’t be so negative.
Number of Theaters: 1,325
Prediction: $8 million


Here’s how I’m betting things will go this coming weekend:
1. Resident Evil: Extinction
2. Good Luck Chuck
3. The Brave One
4. Eastern Promises
5. Sydney White

And here’s how our little competition went last week:
1. Josh: 13
2. Matt: 11
2. Anna07: 11
2. Porcalina: 11
3. Ness265: 9
3. drklrdbill: 9
4. Lee: 8
4. Max: 8
4. Brad: 8
5. Ray: 7
6. peter: 6
7. ABIRD0006: 4
7. MikeJM79: 4

Here’s how the competition works:
Please post your prediction in the comments section below before 5:00PM on Saturday. One point for every top five movie correctly named, two points for every correct placement, and one extra point for the top movie.

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