technology

I got a chill reading this post from Seth Godin:

So, very soon, you will own a cell phone that has a very good camera and knows where you are within ten or fifteen feet. And the web will know who you are and who your friends are.

What happens?

What happens is that you have no privacy. Seth sees a big upside.

See a dangerous driver? Send a video snippet to the clowd. The clowd collates that with a bunch of other shots of the same driver... busted.

And the clowd also knows where you are, camera or no camera. So it can tell you when your old friend is just two gates away from you, also wasting time at the airport waiting for her flight. Or it can do Zagats to the ten thousandth power by not only suggesting the best nearby restaurant (based on your food circle of friends) but can also integrate with Open Table and only recommend restaurants that actually have room for you. Or it can let restaurant owners do yield management and find you a table at a good enough restaurant at the best possible price...

This is going to happen. The only question is whether you are one of the people who will make it happen. I guess there's an even bigger question: will we do it right?

If you do what he describes, can it be "right"?

Imagine the feeling of going to the doctor for that private medical condition, and everybody knows. Imagine being stalked by an admirer or resentful ex while you go about your day. Imagine broadcast spam being pushed at you via phone where ever you go. This adds a whole new meaning to the term "cyberbullying."

The drunk driver scenario? On one level, it's a description of being guilty until proven innocent. Everything you do is under scrutiny.

And of course, not all scrutinizers are equal. It's quite obvious that the government and big business will have more scrutinizing power than your snoopy neighbor. Is that the life we want in a free society?

There at least should be a toggle-able opt-in/opt-out, yes? Or are we to live in the Matrix, plugged in with no option, doing our duty by exposing our entire lives to the machine?

To me, the real possibility of this new age is the empowerment of the individual. That's the power of free (as in freedom) exchange of information. That's the power of open source. That's the power of collaboration, mash-ups, crowdsourcing. Empowerment, not simply a cooler, sexier sublimation to the System. Isn't that the real dream? Isn't that the un-tapped economic and cultural goldmine?

Now that we mere tech plebes have been blessed with yet another definitive "Top 100" list of bloggers, I can rest and relax, knowing that order has been imposed upon the universe.

...below are the top 100 tech bloggers/authors, based on the total number of headlines they have had on TechMeme from January 1, 2008 to today....Since a lot of the top leaderboard blogs are multi-author, this helps to shake out who’s actually writing the popular stories.

Am I alone in feeling that anybody who claims to be in a position to declare a "Top [capital 'T'] 100" list of bloggers somehow is denying the incredibly diverse reality of the intertubes? Surely there are many ways to measure a "top 100" list besides mentions on a single SV/SHR-centric tech site, no matter how popular. Certainly my list would be different than yours, or TechMeme's. Especially when it comes to tech blogging. Really, most of the really interesting tech stuff is not happening under VC funding -- which I feel renders it all but invisible to most of the SV blogmedia world. Isn't most of what is called "tech blogging" really blogging about venture-financed tech? That's quite a subset of all of technology, and "Top" only in a rather narrow sense.

Maybe they should call it "Top 100 Industry Bloggers"?

/rant

/yawn

No doubt many on this list are very interesting bloggers. For the most part, they haven't crossed my path. Precious few are among the 500 blogs in my RSS reader. I guess I'm just too geeky.

Some answers to David Pogue's questions about the technological universe:

* Why is Wi-Fi free at cheap hotels, but $14 a night at expensive ones?

Because you can afford it.

* What happens to software programs when their publishers go out of business?

They persevere on individual computers, in denial of extinction. Sometimes they're just so right you cannot improve upon them.

* Would the record companies sell more music online if it weren't copy-protected?

Of course. I'd start buying and downloading if they stopped treating me like a criminal.

* Do cellphones cause brain cancer?

No I don't know, but they do cause traffic accidents.

* What's the real reason you have to turn off your laptop for takeoff?

To annoy you.

* Why can't a digital S.L.R. camera record video?

Mine can. Yours can't?

* Wi-Fi on airplanes. What's taking so long?

You assume that it is actually going to happen.

* Who are the morons who respond to junk-mail offers, thereby keeping spammers in business?

Your grandparents.

* I'm told that they could make a shirt-pocket digital camera that takes pictures like an S.L.R., but it would cost a lot. So why don't they make one for people who can afford it?

They do. But you have to work for the government to see it.

* How come there are still no viruses for Mac OS X? If it has 6 percent of the market, shouldn't it have 6 percent of the viruses?

As Apple closes up open standards, watch and see.

* Do shareware programmers pay taxes on all those $20 contributions?

Some do, probably.

* How are we going to preserve all of our digital photos and videos for future generations?

I don't know, but it won't be by using Flickr.

* Why are there no federal rebates or tax credits for solar power?

Because President Ronald Reagan killed them.

* Why do you have to take tape camcorders out of your carry-on at airport security, but not the tapeless kind? Couldn't you hide a bomb equally well in either one? (Actually, I have about 500 more logic questions about the rules at airport security, but I have a feeling they'll remain answerless for a very long time.)

Probably something to do with the x-ray image they have.

* Laptops, cameras and cellphones have improved by a thousand percent in the last ten years. Why not their batteries?

Maybe the laptops, cameras and cellphones have improved in the wrong ways. Remember, transistors were considered worthless because they couldn't handle the power for home "hi-fi" consoles. Then along came Sony to make small transistor radios. The transistors were the same, the radios changed.

* SmartDisplay, Spot Watch, U.M.P.C., Zune… when will Microsoft realize that it's not a hardware company?

Sometime after Apple does.

* Why don't public sinks have foot pedals?

It costs more.

* Why don't all hotels have check-in kiosks like airlines do?

You want to make hotels more like airlines? What? Are you f---ing crazy?!!!!

* Five billion dollars a year spent on ringtones? What the?

The summoning to sacrifice is sacred.

* How come cellphone signal-strength bars are so often wrong?

They're on cell phones.

* Do P.R. people really expect anyone to believe that the standard, stilted, second-paragraph C.E.O. quote was really uttered by a human being?

Of course. It was. By the PR people.

* Why aren't there recycling bins for bottles and cans where they're most obviously needed, like food courts and cafeterias?

Because that would cost more.

* Why doesn't someone start a cellphone company that bills you only for what you use? That model works O.K. for the electricity, gas and water companies —and people would beat a path to its door.

Because they don't have to ... yet.

* Why doesn't everyone have lights that turn off automatically when the room is empty?

Creepy!!!

* What's the deal with Palm?

Well, someone has to come in at the bottom.

* Why are so many people rude on the Internet?

...because they are rude people?

I blogged the following on BlogHer , about the new O'Reilly series on Women in Technology....

If you just casually glance around tech departments in companies and tech-oriented conferences, it's easy to get the impression that there aren't many women in technology these days. Yet it's undeniable that women are making a big impact on the technology world. (If you think it is deniable, then please keep reading.) Exploring this subject is a special series this month on O'Reilly: Women in Technology. Every day this month, an accomplished woman in technology shares her thoughts.*

If you've seen O'Reilly books, you know that each topic area gets its own animal. Tatiana Apandi perhaps hints at a theme of the series by explaining why the O'Reilly animal chosen for this series is the lioness:

Although the lion is often called the King of the Jungle, lion society is actually ruled by its females. Lionesses are the ones primarily responsible for providing sustenance for their entire pride. She is a natural leader. When hunting, each lioness plays to her strengths. She even adjusts her individual role in the hunt depending on the prey to ensure capture for the pride. She can adapt to suit the task at hand. A lioness also will nurse any cub, indiscriminate of whether that cub is her own. She will give with the greater good in mind.

So who are these lionesses in technology? Open technology evangelist (and Jive Software's Director of Developer Relations) Dawn Foster informs us that:

I will be appearing somewhere in this series along with Anna Martelli, Audrey Eschright, CJ Rayhill, Dru Lavigne, Gabrielle Roth, Jeni Tennison, Jill Dyche, Juliet Kemp, Julia Lerman, Kaliya Hamlin, Kirsten Jones, Lauren Wood, Leslie Hawthorn, Selena Deckelmann, and Shelley Powers.

If you don't recognize all of these names ... and I certainly don't ... the first installment hints that maybe we all should.

Leslie Hawthorne, formerly of Google and currently with the Open Source Programs Office, leads off the series with some thoughts on what leadership is -- and can be -- whether it's "female" or not.

I've never thought of my role in the technical community as being the result of or in any way inextricably tied to my femininity. If anything, in an effort to be the change I wish to see in the world, I've distanced myself from questions of gender roles in my work. If we are all (to be) equal, it seems counter-intuitive to look at my work as informed by my being a woman. I do and I make, I listen and I advise, I lead and I follow, and none of these things are the exclusive purview of women. While others might, I would not argue that either sex has a particular aptitude for any of these things. Still, when I look at what I do and what I make, I far more often than not find women playing a similar role and doing similar tasks: building communities, creating space for creativity and connection to manifest, taking care of mundane and arcane details so that others can focus on executing to a grander vision.

Like everyone else, I've been called many things in my day, and often the word used is mother – “a mother of open source” or “geek mama.” I usually hear these words after organizing a particularly effective conference, reviewing a Summer of Code student's slide deck before the big presentation, or posting a particularly insightful piece of advice to a mailing list. It's not a compliment I accept without reservation. It brands me as feminine in a masculine world, it implies difference where the optimal outcome is equality and, by extension, sameness.

Certainly, this designation means that people see me as someone who will solve problems effectively on the fly, provide reassurance and support, and impart accumulated wisdom and help when needed. Given that these are all things I strive to do, it's satisfying that I'm perceived this way. On the other hand, at its core the reality of that compliment can be wholly unrewarding; a woman is a mother by virtue of her having children, a powerful role, to be certain, but one by nature subservient to the desires and needs of others. While the role I play has a service-oriented capacity to it – and I personally feel a great responsibility to be of service to the various individuals and communities with whom I interact – it can, at times, feel as though my accomplishments are regarded as having no intrinsic value, that my actions have merit only insofar as they are a vehicle for helping others accomplish their goals.

This series looks like something to watch (and maybe to add to your feed reader).

Someone who won't be in that feed, but perhaps should be, is Addison Berry, one of the few female developers in the active Drupal community. I had the pleasure of meeting "Addi" in March at the OSCMS, where in a roomful of Drupal developers she was walking the walk that Leslie Hawthorne describes -- helping others do better. It's a small wonder she's so admired and respected in that do-ocracy.

Last week Addi posted some thoughts after on the developers' IRC channel "a conversation erupted about sexism":

The classic way that sexism rears its head in the community channels is when someone says something that is offensive or could be taken as a sexist statement. Now, if it is really just blatantly sexist and offensive, odds are that the community (or at least some individual(s)) will call the person out and reprimand them in some way. The other scenario is that a guy will say something that he may not "intend" to be offensive or was "just joking." This is where things can go very, very wrong depending on the reaction.

One of the most frustrating things about reactions is when someone says something to call it out and men in the channel come to the defense of the original person (or the behavior in general) by pointing out that they didn't mean it that way or that "that's what guys do." It is all the more annoying when these guys (and nice, well-meaning guys sometimes) distance themselves from their statements by saying "I'm not like that, but some guys are" and yet, they still end up either outright defending or playing Devil's advocate rather than trying to help the situation. The reasons this is infuriating is because 1) people are missing the crux of the problem and 2) it belittles the original objection. It adds insult to injury.

I don't want to devolve into the way men are or what social norms they have been exposed to. I also understand that men may not "realize" what they say or how they say it may be taken as offensive. But if someone points out that it is offensive, then that needs to be looked at and acknowledged, not only by the person who said it by but others in the community as well. Intention or reason is not the focus. Sexism is harmful whether someone meant it to be or not and that is what needs to be addressed. Excusing sexist behavior will not help it go away but acknowledging it and being more aware of it in our interactions with others will minimize it and that is a good thing for everyone involved.

The Drupal community has all kinds of social norms and ways of interacting. I mean for goodness' sake the crux of the Open Source community is this little thing called karma. I'm not saying that everyone will suddenly decide this is important and the sexism will just stop. We won't stop sexism. But we can be more aware and better attuned to its impact. We can react in a much more constructive and positive way. Honestly, in particular, we need men to not leave women hanging out on a limb by themselves.

Leslie sounds similar notes, in the broader context.

If anything, men tend to be passionate advocates for helping women have a broader involvement in the technical conversation and the shaping of our respective futures. I find myself spending time with individuals from many open source projects with wildly divergent aims and methodologies, but without exception the healthiest ones are those who place a high value on contribution of any kind, not just in the creation of code. Among these folks, I find my efforts are accorded the highest of respect and I am treated as an equal, if not as a goddess, for the simple things I do each day: bringing people together, providing structure and organization, understanding pragmatic but often overlooked details, communicating effectively with people from diverse backgrounds and helping them to work most effectively with one another. Some may call that mothering. I'd call it social engineering.

In other words, be the change.

In the second post in the series, the president of Harvey Mudd College, Maria Klawe, notes that the change is already happening in the schools.

As a child of the 1950s, I have spent my life being part of the wave of change for women in math, science, and engineering. While I was in high school, my teachers routinely said that girls couldn't do math or physics. While I was in college, some professors would ask me why I wanted to be a mathematician since "there are no good women mathematicians." Despite such comments, most of my teachers and professors were delighted to have a female student who loved mathematics, and they encouraged and supported me. They also got me started in K–12 outreach activities to convince girls, teachers, and parents that girls can excel in math and science and that doing well in high school math is essential for success in any professional career.

Today, about 45 percent of undergrad math majors and about 30 percent of the Ph.D. recipients are female. And it's much rarer to hear someone say, "Girls can't do math." Similar changes have been happening to differing degrees in almost every area of science and engineering. It's exciting to see dramatic increases in the number of women in this year's entering classes at the top science and engineering schools. Caltech's class of 2011 is 37 percent female, a huge increase over previous years. At Harvey Mudd College, the class of 2011 is almost 43 percent female, again a huge increase for Mudd, but still less than at MIT with 46 percent of its entering class female. Princeton's engineering class of 2011 is almost 40 percent female. Such large numbers of female students dramatically change the culture inside and outside the classroom, and both male and female students appreciate the difference.

In many ways, this is the best time ever to be a female student in a technical area.

It's not all rosy, though, especially in computer science ... which happens to be closely related to my own field. As an employer, let me tell you, it can be extremely difficult to find and retain talented women in programming. In our own experience, very few women even apply for such positions. It's not like talented female programmers and developers are not out there, but as a percentage there aren't many.

Maria reports that "the percentage of CS bachelor's degrees granted in research universities to women is at 14 percent, its lowest ever (see http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/women.html)" and that barriers still exist for women in the male-dominated world of technology.

But this is all changing. We are the change.

What are the ways you see to be the change? Post a comment here. Join the Deeply Geeky email list. Blog it. Talk it. Be it. Let's hear you roar.

--

* Disclosure: After writing this, I was informed that BlogHer.org has been approached to contribute to the O'Reilly series. I am a Contributing Editor for BlogHer.org, for which I get paid a modest stipend.

Okay, so the Palm 700P was quite possibly the worst technology purchase I ever made. It's slow. It freezes up on me at unpredicable times. Its touchscreen goes to sleep when you need it. Its keypad buttons are made for 9-year-olds.

Now they have an update.

As part of our continuous effort to give customers the best possible experience, Palm offers an update that features performance and reliability enhancements.

Sounds great, right? However....

... you cannot update unless you have all the required extras ... like a blank expansion card (unless you're running an older version of Windows).

Is it any wonder that Palm is in a world of hurt?

See also:

Technorati: Palm sucks
Google: Palm sucks

It's about time I linked to Tara Hunt's list of "Women Who Risk", especially since she had the kindness to list me and Katherine as founders of our interactive media company.

Tara writes:

Once I’m not so stinking busy, I am going to start something…first a conversation, then maybe a get together or two. I’ve met some amazing, incredible women already who are pretty excited about a group that is specifically focused on tempting women into technology entrepreneurship. I’ve started a Google Group.

(I should probably assume that it's past time I join that group as well, and for a technology entrepreneur, I suppose my excuse that Google has managed to totally confuse me by requiring I have different accounts for Google Maps API, Google Analytics, Google Adsense, etc. so that I don't rightly know which I'm supposed to use for a Google Group doesn't carry much weight -- though my general squeamishness regarding having monolithic third parties keeping and indexing all communications also reduces my enthusiasm towards joining. Call me another iconoclastic curmudgeon when it comes to privacy.)

There has been some discussion around the Deeply Geeky circles about this list, and other lists, but the focus of such talk has largely been on getting women invited to be speakers at conferences.

That's all fine and good, but I wonder at the implied assumption in many such discussions that female entrepreneurs as a matter of course should aspire to be public speakers. Maybe I'm just too much the non-extrovert, but I guess I have trouble equating accomplishment with being able to talk about accomplishment.

There's no doubt that mentoring is needed in technology, especially since the schools are so far behind on so many levels, and I agree that having eloquent and capable women doing public speaking can help the cause.

The question is how we can effect change in ways aside from holding the microphone at a conference. For women entrepreneurs, there are many ways, such as simply being an effective entrepreneur, a good manager, a mentor to one's employees, an evangelist of the company's values and mission.... It all seems obvious, and yet this is not enough when it comes to effecting real change. And I daresay adding more women speakers to conference panels isn't going to do much, either.

Shelley Powers suggests radical changes in our educational system:

This state isn't reflected just in the lack of women–it's programs like agile computing, which are trying to compensate for behavioral characteristics that we're finding out, now, cause more harm than good. Yet, the colleges gear their programs to people with these same behavioral characteristics. That's where we need to start. We need to completely change the curriculum of computer science in school. In fact, we need to eliminate computer science as a separate field....

...We spend our entire time focusing on the tools, rather than the application of the technology. We're still teaching computer science, as if no one has access to computers because they're still room sized and only available to an elite few.

Computer Science is still too heavily associated with either the math or the engineering departments, neither of which reflects how computers are used today. Computers are used in business and in social sciences, in psychology, medicine, history, and on and on. We associate computer science with calculus, when something like the library sciences would provide more useful integration, with its better understanding of the gathering and categorizing of data....

...There's no connection with what's happening in the world. There's nothing more than a desperate attempt to hold on to what's familiar. Unfortunately, though, the side effect is that the programs attract a certain type of person, and frankly, discourage others who could and would add much to the field.

The most difficult step to take to 'fixing' why there's too few women in IT is first by recognizing IT is broken. In our society, where we supposedly encourage women to go into field, and explore any profession, any such that has this few women in it, is broken. No, we don't need to encourage women, we don't need to make men realize that showing porn images at a professional conference is inappropriate. It goes far beyond just these simple acts: the field is broken, and how it is taught in university only encourages the flaws that break it.

This bold statement speaks to the truth, I feel. We have students working in pingVision, but it's what they individually bring to the job that makes them valuable, not what they've learned in some classroom. I fear there's little interest in educational circles to recognize this, let alone address it. (Shouldn't we have One Laptop Per Child in our own country?)

Anyway, I applaud efforts to get women entrepreneurs noticed, and if I were invited to speak at another conference, I'd be delighted to consider working it into my schedule. Maybe I'd speak to these issues, or maybe I'd just try to offer my little perspective on the universe of things in technology they don't teach in school.

WiMAX is on the way, finally.

The Mobile Intelligent Terminal was unveiled at a Samsung-sponsored industry conference on Mobile WiMax, which is just coming into use and promises fast broadband connections over long distances.

The device weighs about a pound and contains a fold-out keyboard, 5-inch screen and 30 gigabyte hard drive. It runs the full version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system and also supports the CDMA mobile phone communications standard, which is used in South Korea and other countries including the United States.

Kim Hun-bae, Samsung vice president for mobile research and development, told reporters that the gadget is the world's first WiMax device that also works as a mobile phone. It also can access the Internet, make video phone calls and display television as well as other video.

The "MIT" is so new that googling up the model number, SPH-P9000, yields nothing, not even a hit on Samsung's own site, where they promote their WiMax products, but not this new mega-phone-thing.

(Is "MIT" really going to be the acronym? "Hold a MIT in your mitt!" "Communicate mit MIT!" "MIT me sometime!")

Never mind the funny-looking device — I mean, check out this AP photo [pop-up window] — I'm really excited that WiMAX is almost here.

WiMAX is a wireless digital communications system, also known as IEEE 802.16, that is intended for wireless "metropolitan area networks". WiMAX can provide broadband wireless access (BWA) up to 30 miles (50 km) for fixed stations, and 3 - 10 miles (5 - 15 km) for mobile stations. In contrast, the WiFi/802.11 wireless local area network standard is limited in most cases to only 100 - 300 feet (30 - 100m).

With WiMAX, WiFi-like data rates are easily supported, but the issue of interference is lessened. WiMAX operates on both licensed and non-licensed frequencies, providing a regulated environment and viable economic model for wireless carriers.

WiMAX can be used for wireless networking in much the same way as the more common WiFi protocol. WiMAX is a second-generation protocol that allows for more efficient bandwidth use, interference avoidance, and is intended to allow higher data rates over longer distances.

This is going to change more than cell phones. [More on Wikipedia.]

It all makes my new Palm 700p seem rather archaic.

A couple of days ago, I witnessed an almost-accident: The left turn arrow changed to green and a guy going straight just started off into the intersection, almost smacking head-on into a left-turning car from the other direction.

The turning car blared its horn. He stopped eventually -- almost too late. The turning car moved on. The light turned green, and I started forward from the #2 lane....

...and saw the driver, a 20-something guy who was completely nonplussed, chatting away on his cell phone he had pressed to his ear.

This was in Longmont, Colorado, but hopefully California's new law will eventually hit this state that so-doggedly embraces individual freedoms.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed the measure, urged Californians not to wait until then to put down their phones while driving, citing government data showing those who held their phones while driving were involved in 15 times more accidents than those with hands-free setups.

"The simple fact is that it is really dangerous to talk on a cell phone and drive at the same time," Schwarzenegger said. "It's very important for people to know ... stop using the cell phone right now, because you are putting people at risk."

I've been using cell phones since 1994, driving with them all that time. It didn't take long to realize that every time I was talking with that then-rather-large flip-phone to my ear, I was entering my own little Twilight Zone, slowing down to way below the speed limit, not noticing the traffic around me except in some vague dream-like sense, certainly not prepared for any unexpected moves by other cars (which certainly can be expected in LA).

I had to learn how to drive with the cell phone, learn how to pay full attention to driving while someone was demanding my attention. And I had to learn to not futz with the phone itself while driving, for it was much more complicated than changing a radio station.

When I got an earpiece for the phone, it all got better. Living and working freelance in LA, where everything seems to be at least an hour's drive away on surface streets, I had to have the phone. More than once it made the difference in getting six months of work. And I had to drive. The earpiece made it possible. I still had to focus on concentrating while driving -- it has become habit now -- but it helped.

Now if only there could be a law requiring cell phone companies to use an earpiece.

Can't we all just get along? (And not only that, connect and network and mentor each other?) That was the sentiment expressed by what seemed like an under-represented group of BlogHers.

I'm talking about the geeks. (Hmmm? Forgot about us?) :D

The highlight of the entire BlogHer Conference for me was the Deeply Geeky session -- and I'm not just saying that because I was on the panel. This was a session full of passion and insight, and I really feel like people walked into the room as individuals, but walked out with a sense of, if not solidarity, than connectedness. We are not alone.

"How many of you consider yourselves geeks?" Nearly everyone's hands go up.

"How many of you are self-taught?" Again, nearly everyone raises a hand.

"How many of you were mentored?" Five, maybe ten hands, out of a room of, what, 70 or 80 women.

That says a lot.

From the very start, we panelists -- Melanie Swan, mir verberg, Nancy White and myself -- wanted our "panel discussion" to really be an un-panel. Who were we to speak for everyone? I certainly did not want to be part of a pontification session. No, we wanted to engage the "audience" and make them be participants.

As a result, 97% (or so it seemed; maybe a geek will add up the minutes when the podcast goes live) of the hour and a half was filled with women standing up, taking the mic, and opening their hearts.

"Why are so few women able to find mentoring?" There was a lot of opinion on that: because men won't mentor women; because women aren't in positions to mentor other women; because women won't mentor women; because women aren't getting hired in the first place.... The answers were not at all unanimous.

Women stood up, took the mic, and took issue with what others said. It wasn't nasty or contrarian, but spirited. The whole room was in on the conversation. Some women stood up and laid their hearts out, sharing their passion for what they do, often with tears -- not of victimhood, but of joy, of determination, of speaking from the core of their beings. (Yeah, it sounds corny to read it, but I swear it's true.)

"Are women victims of chauvinism?" Yes. No. Maybe. So what? Duh! "Is it worse in tech than other fields?" Yes. No. Maybe. So what? Duh!

"Why are women uncomfortable assessing their own ability?"

"Why don't women get hired into management?"

"Why are women so often assumed to be incompetent technically?"

"Why are so many women entrepreneurs, yet so few are CEOs of larger concerns?"

"How do you deal with the jerks?"

"What can women do to change this?" Fight. Do better. Network better. Be more assertive. Change the culture. Estroswarm (a hiliarious word tossed out by Liza Sabater).
One of the most gratifying things coming out of this session was that here we were, all sharing a general sense that we had to do something -- and someone suggested we start right there, in the room, by gathering everyone's contacts into one meta-group, networking and mentoring each other and just staying connected.

That made total sense! As a self-taught geek who's too much the dork to be any good at networking, this was music to my ears. I mean, this room was its own estroswarm of geek power in this corner of the 'net industry.

So I pulled my notepad out of my bag and started passing it around the room, and it seems like everyone add their name and email -- a brave thing to do at a conference. We now have a list of women interested in keeping something of the connected feeling I think we all felt in that room.

--And some of the women sent us emails following up, giving us more names of women from their networks who would be interested in joining the community!

Of course, being geeks, Nancy, Melanie, mir and I are now sizing up just what the best way to go about this might be. A simple listserv? A social networking site? A corporate service like [fill-in-the-blank] Groups? (The latter is most unappealing to me.) Options are being considered. We'll have something up soon. Promise!

I came away on a total high from that Deeply Geeky session, and for me was the utter highlight of the entire conference. And no swag shortcomings or perceived demographic tilts or very odd bottled water or commercial corporate sponsor miscalculations can take away my sense that the BlogHer Conference was way cool, because for those 90 minutes, I was not alone, and I met some really great women before, during and after.

What else could I ask for?

[Cross-posted from BlogHer.]

This is great news:

DailyTech and Engadget are showing off pictures from an FCC filing by Apple Computer of the new Mighty Mouse. It looks a lot like the old Mighty Mouse, minus the wire. It is being reported that the mouse will use two standard AA batteries and will be compatible with Tiger. However, the current Mighty Mouse works with Jaguar, albeit with reduced functionality, so it's likely that the Bluetooth model will do the same. In case you don't remember, the original Mighty Mouse had a few drawbacks, two of them being the cord and no Bluetooth, so that's two down.

And it's more than an FCC filing, it's here!

I love the Mighty Mouse because of its trackball, which is an order of magnitude better and easier to use than the big wheels other mice use. It takes a little practice to do the right-click thing, because the mouse is all one big form, so you have to really click over on the right side of the mouse to do things like view contextual menus, but that's an easy adjustment. I find the other mice to be archaic by comparison, just because of those big wheels.

The Mighty Mouse also has these side buttons that I confess I've not worked into my usage flow. But it's nice to know I have programmable power there.

I'm delighted that we can finally get rid of that darned cable, which is always getting in the way of my papers and such. But if it doesn't have a tail, shouldn't we call it the Mighty Gerbil?