I’ve been very eager to write this blog entry for a while. I’m really happy to say that Josh Dura is joining our growing ranks of Flash developers at Yahoo!

Josh is joining our our Dallas office working with a group that has done some amazing things with Flash Communications Server. With Josh now on the team, I’m sure they will be better still. The group he is joining won the MAX award for “Advertising Experience” two years ago for their work on Yahoo! AdVision, a great system for putting Flash Video into our high-end advertisements in the Yahoo! network. One of my favorite projects though is still Messenger Live, Where Chris Mancini and his team built a Messenger viewer in FCS that would allows online audiences to watch contestants using messenger and rate the IMers that people found the most interesting.

While Josh is the latest of our Flash hires, we still have Flash and Flex job opportunities throughout Yahoo! Take a look at http://join.yahoo.com to find a Flash job that might suit you

When going to pay for dinner tonight I noticed a ring around the reserve bank symbol on the dollar bill I had put down. It was a URL for wheresgeorge.com stamped on the bill for a money tracking site. I’ve seen messages on money in a much more low-tech way since I was a kid, but this was pretty funny. I entered the serial number but unfortunately somebody stamped the bill but didn’t enter the bill into the system.

Hopefully someone else will eventually give this a try and see that I transferred planes in Salt Lake City the other day. I *think* that is where I got it.

The really funny part of the site though is that they must sell a stamp that made the interesting mark on the bill. look on the site. Do you see it? no? Well if you dig around, you can find the fact that it is discontinued in their store. If you don’t mark the bills then what is the point. According to the FAQ we are supposed to go get our own made. This snippet from the site’s FAQ though was amusing:

#8 Is it legal to write on or mark currency?
Where’s George? does not encourage the defacement of U.S. Currency. The law defines ‘illegal’ defacement as defacement that renders bills unfit to be re-issued. For the legal details from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, please Click Here

#9 What happened to the official Where’s George? Rubber stamps?
We no longer sell any Where’s George? rubber stamps. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

#10 So, where can I get a rubber stamp?
We really can’t help you there. Sorry. But any local office supply store may make one for you. There are also many online custom stamp makers on the Internet.

I’m sure those questions were completely randomly ordered and have nothing to do with each other. I wonder how much trouble they got in.

On the way to the airport , Ray, Scott and I went over to the Dali Museum. That is a really impressively large collection of Dali work. the only larger collection I’ve seen was in Figueras, Spain, Dali’s hometown.

Some of the most famous, iconicly Dali paintings were there including the pixel painting of Lincoln/portrait of Gala standing at a window, as well as three enormous paintings that I think everyone would recognize, (blanking on the names right now and the Wi-Fi here is spotty).
the one with the torreador with the Venus de Milo was amazing to see in person as well as his tribute to columbus’s voyage to the Americas (not getting into the discovery/re-encounter stuff).

What was really more fascinating though was the other work. This museum has a huge amount of Dali’s work from when he was young and as a student. There were also other paintings in the cubist form as he explored the artistic trends of the day. There was definitely an evolution in theme and style that can really be seen emerging to become his masterpieces.

The tour was a bit iffy (how the guide could make Dali dry and boring I don’t know, but she almost succeeded), but the artwork more than makes up for it.

The picture above is me having a bit of fun with the Dali finger puppet magnets. I always wonder what the artists would think of the marketing around themselves and their art. Mr. Dali, just how do you feel about the paintings that express your essential views of the world being turned into a light switch plate? In the tradition of Dali, I did put a bit of a juxtaposition in my picture, but only so much is possible with finger puppets and a cell phone camera.

Onward home!

A CNet article today said that a man in Florida was arrested today for “mooching” open Wi-Fi. Event after a week of relying on authorized open Wi-Fi at Flash Forward, I am still not conflicted.

First, the guy that was arrested wasn’t just sitting someplace and got on the wrong network. He wasn’t even just casually using an open Wi-Fi point because he just needed to get on the net real fast. (edit:)He was sitting in his car outside someone else’s house, acting suspiciously when the homeowner approached. He was apparently scanning through the neighborhood looking for open networks to use. That is pretty wrong.

However, if I see an open Wi-Fi point (in the course of my normal life) I feel free to use it. It isn’t hard to at least put a WEP key on the connection if you are at all worried about it. There are plenty of people that actually intentionally leave their connections open to try and give public Internet access. Those that do place firewalls between the wireless connections and their internal networks.

At home, we have a Wi-Fi network, but we keep it secured. We are well within range of a T-mobile hot-spot, so we have to keep things closed to make sure those customers don’t try us as a free alternative. In our complex though people take different approaches. The business next to us leaves their network wide open. It makes me shudder, but I did my part and went over to make sure they knew. Most of the others in range of home are all well locked down.

At conferences, I’ve seen two approaches. FlashForward is very generous with their Wi-Fi. It is free, and open without a password. Macromedia Max is free but they distribute documentation with the configuration information as well as the WEP key.

At work we actually have two wireless networks. We have our main network that is extremely well secured. You have to use an RSA secureID token plus account information to get on. We also have a guest wireless network that exists outside the firewall and is protected by a WEP key (just ask at the reception desk if you come for a visit).

I guess my point is that there are a lot of security options available for wireless connections. Before you set up your own network I think you have an obligation to know a bit about it and make an informed decision. However if you do anything to prevent someone from accessing your network (possibly including giving he network a name like “private”) then I do think you are obligated to stay out, and if you try and continue, the law should and probably does apply.