To all my friends out there, know that I think of you often. I wish time would slow down a bit, and that we could hang out more, enjoy some good food, and talk about all the great things we are planning to do.

Agents are browsing information published on MySpace, discussion boards, and using search engines to learn about unclaimed income, purchases, and the physical location of suspects who owe back taxes.

Scofflaws should beware, take head, or pay their taxes. Cue appropriate song by The Beatles:

Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman

If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet

Taxman!
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman

Visit: Taxman Turns to Social-Network Sites

Consider the following scenario. You maintain a blog using WordPress. This open source blogging platform is patched on a regular basis to correct bugs and security faults. Notification of software updates is essential for maintaining the security and integrity of your blog. Content and blog software configuration information could be compromised by a hacker who exploits known security flaws. To stay informed of software patches you can either visit the developer site regularly, subscribe to the developer blog RSS feed, or login to your WordPress installation and manually install patches — WordPress does not maintain a patch notification mailing list.

What if you are on vacation or away from the office for an extended period of time? Winnowing through RSS feeds or visiting the WordPress developer blog will not be convenient. What if you could have RSS updates from sources specified by you emailed to you? Emails could be pushed to your mobile device or to an account you would check daily.

FeedMyInbox is a free service that aggregates feeds published in RSS, XML, and ATOM formats and emails them directly to you. The service is summarized on the FeedMyInbox Web site:

FeedMyInbox is a very simple service that attempts to bridge the gap between feeds (RSS, XML, Atom) and email. Only 3% of computer users are familiar with how feeds work, and are using feed readers to get up-to-date information from their favorite sites. We don’t think the other 97% should be left out in the cold, so now you can subscribe to a feed with your email address.

Using the service is a four step process:

1. Visit http://www.feedmyinbox.com/
2. Enter a Web site URL of the site you want updates from
3. Enter your email address
4. Press the Submit button

You will receive an email asking you to click a link to confirm that you are opting in to the FeedMyInbox service.

By the way, if you are not listening to WYNC’s Radio Lab podcast, you really should give it a try — it is a great source for inspiration and interesting ideas. The show is very creative and they do a lot of fun things with the audio storytelling format.

Visit: 16: Moments – A short film by Will Hoffman

It looks like the course and downloadable materials are reset each semester. So, be sure to access the site and save materials from the full course while it is still available!

Want to learn to develop your own iPhone app? Then you should visit: Free Stanford course on developing iPhone, iPod Touch apps.

There is also a good looking book over at Amazon.com titled Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK that has received hundreds of positive reviews. Personally, I always like a combination of a printed reference, audio lectures, sample files, and specific/focused projects for learning to develop on a new platform. Now…all I need is about 100 more hours in the day. Happy programming!

Book cover design for Chris Anderson's "Free - The future of a radical price".

Wired Magazine Editor in Chief Chris Anderson’s new book Free was released on July 7, 2009. The publisher’s summary of the title indicates that “in Free, [Anderson] makes the compelling case that, in many instances, businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them”.

Anderson is distributing copies of the new title for free in eBook, MP3, and audiobook format. For those of you who love the feel of a book in your hands, printed copies of Free are now available for sale too. I plan to enjoy listening to the free audiobook version from Audible during my commute.

Anderson also wrote the bestseller The Long Tail — about how niche markets delivering unique products can be made available to consumers through online stores.

To download your copy of Free, visit: Get a free copy of “Free” by Chris Anderson

Visit: Save Our Sounds – A social powered audio archive from the BBC

As the story unfolds you will experience youth from the perspective of children growing up in a culture of poverty, religious intolerance, and gangs. Slumdog presents a somewhat tragic tale of two brothers and a girl who survive a religious massacre, hunger and poverty, the uncertainty of who to trust, and the bias of a socially stratified society. Despite hardship and the loss of family we see the strength of human connections through friendship and love. In the end happiness is proven to be grounded in loyalty to your family and an unbreakable bond of friendship and love.

I found the visuals of the tent cities in India and children rumaging through mountains of trash in a landfill juxtaposed to a city skyline populated by skyscrapers filled with condos and apartments for the wealthy to be compelling. I considered how Americans argue over seats in a movie theater or impatiently honk the horns of their shiny sport utility vehicle. Even though the story of Slumdog Millionaire is designed to entertain, I could not help but think how different and isolated our life experience can be. Pair this perspective with the role envisioned for America by President Obama in his inaugural speech: we can no longer stand idly by and watch what unfolds on the global stage.

I love movies that make me think. Slumdog Millionaire had a great story, memorable characters, and multiple thought provoking messages. It is one of the best movies I have seen in the past six months.

There was also a photo exhibit from Mali. Students there had been given instruction regarding photography composition and story telling. The photos were really beautiful and included descriptions written by the young photographers. I liked the honest and simple approach of the photo captions. It felt like I was seeing the world from the perspective of a young person. I saw their day-to-day life, their family, heros and friends. Many of the photos showed the connection these young budding phtoographers had with their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Really cool stuff. I’m going to have to go back soon and check out the rest of the museum — I only had time to check out part of the first floor! I’ve heard that there is also a cool art museum on campus.