So we're cleaning out the accounting records, and anything over ten years old can go away. Digging around we came across this old invoice, from 1991, for our very first ever computer workstation. The Apple Mac Quadra 900, a monster of a tower, with 16 slots for RAM (maximum 4mb each!) that had to be filled equally, and a badass 25MHz (you read that right) Motorola xx040 processor. We also added one of the earliest 1GB hard drives available, a massive 19" monitor with color calibration, and other outstanding accoutrement.

Socialmention.com has an interesting tool called the "Real Time Buzz Widget" that lists mentions of your site or blog in a scrolling window in "real-time". I'm exploring their site right now. Here's a widget aimed at "quantumcommunications". They're kind of weird so far.

Mistake #1: Chairs for booth attendants
It sends the wrong message—to the person approaching AND the folks working the booth. You don't want the potential customer to feel as if they're putting someone out to get up & take care of them. Staff will get the wrong idea about the reason they're there. Plus, it's human to get comfortable, get involved in a conversation and lose track of working the booth.

Getting a trade show booth set up is a daunting prospect. Something almost always gets forgotten, from the technical, to the trivial, to the big-picture conceptual. Quantum put together a list of things people forget when getting ready for a show, and I'm going to present them in segments, in no particular order. Here's the first 6:

You read that right...1.2 Billion, with "B" as in "buh buh buh"

Interestingly, Facebook's fastest growing area comes from its self-serve ad platform, which launched in August 2007. "We believe it accounted for about half of all ad spending on Facebook," eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson said. "It's really become a tremendous business for the company. We didn't account for the size of that business last year in our estimate, but we found that it's become a great tool for direct-marketing advertisers."

Who would have thought, a mere two years ago or so, when people were doubting any dot-com could ever make money, this would be happening?

AdAge has an article detailing the marketing push that's leading BUICK of all brands to drive sales at GM.

A new design and a marketing shift to a younger audience have helped U.S. sales of Buick's Enclave, Regal and LaCrosse skyrocket since last year -- and even more so in China, where it is the No. 1 brand.

To steal a line from the classic Oldsmobile campaign, this is not your (grand)father's car any more.

Enjoy your weekend! Dance if you must!

Apparently some automatic response systems that companies use on their phones are programmed to respond to the "Dirty 7" words by sending you directly to a human operator. Seems worth a shot next time you feel trapped in endless menus and spoken commands that make no sense to the computer system. I don't think it works with human operators very well though, however satisfying it sometimes may be. I would not recommend trying this tactic at the DMV or airport either.

Lifehacker has a nice piece on Google's new Chrome OS.
The release date is a somewhat vague "later this year"...that always makes me suspicious. We'll see. As long as it's all interoperable, it's fine with me.

Random neat quote:
We don't need hope to survive or success to persevere. Resistance to tyranny is a way of life.
-French WW2 Resistance motto

Wired has a nice side-by-side comparison of the current crop of smartphones. They feature the iPhone, the Pre, the G1, and the Blackberry Storm. I'm a Pre user, but I've used iPhones in the past, as well as G1's, but never a Storm. I'm getting more and more used to webOS on the Pre, and the slide-out keyboard is worth its weight in gold (I cannot stand the iPhone's touchscreen keyboard, it's the main reason I waited for the Pre). I have lots of friends who swear by their iPhones, and another friend who loves his G1. Some things just come down to taste! The lack of apps, so far, on the Pre is a major downer.