The following Press Release appeared in the Dallas Morning News to announce my sale of One Man’s Blog:

Google today announced it has struck an accord with the popular blogger John Pozadzides, from One Man’s Blog, whereby they will acquire all content and image rights including the likeness of Mr. Pozadzides.

Jack Spenser, VP of New Media Development, said, “Google is pleased to have obtained such a volumnuous library of top content. Over the past two years we’ve sent millions of visitors to the site, so it seemed like a natural fit to bring it under the Google umbrella. This is the first acquisition in the new Google Blog Content Ownership program, and we will be announcing acquisitions of many other top bloggers in the very near future. Our goal is to own all the top content on the Web.”

“To be honest, I’m quite pleased to dump this albatross off on Google,” said Mr. Pozadzides. “Now that I’ve already cashed the check I don’t mind telling you that I won’t be missing the late nights of authoring articles until 3am. Now it’s someone else’s problem, good riddance!”

Mr. Pozadzides has agreed to stay on as a content advisor for no more than a period of 144 months in order to maintain the content and supervise a team of outsourced Malaysians who will take over publication duties.

I just had to give up my Sprint powered PPC8800 for a Blackberry Curve 8310 so I could be on the communal rate plan and also have real-time Exchange access for e-mail at work. After doing so it forced me to do a lot of research on applications and ways to better my Curve.

I figured some other people are going to go looking for this info as well, so I’ve compiled what I learned here. Its not my most organized post, but there is a lot of information and I didn’t want to spend forever getting the post out. Hopefully if anyone knows of other cool, free stuff for the BB you’ll drop a comment below and let me know.
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For hours today every time I do a Google search it comes back with a “we’re sorry” message and makes me keep putting in a capcha. WTF? I know it’s not something on my PC because the same thing is occurring with searches conducted from OMB’s built in Google search.

Specifically the error reads:

We’re Sorry…

… but your query looks similar to to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we’ll see you again on Google.

Somebody there needs to get this sucker fixed!
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Blogstorm had a fun little post a couple of days ago which inspired me to whip up this little search tool. I came across the article on Weblog Tools Collection which had the following to say:

Digg saturation: Patrick from Blogstorm came up with a way to rank websites using a Digg saturation value that he came up with by searching Google with a specific URI. Apparently Google really likes sites that are Dugg.

This got me to thinking… why should people have to go elsewhere to conduct the search, I worked out a method to integrate this into the site without having to leave when I wrote my article on How to Bootleg Everything! So, here is a simple little form you can use to see what your Blog’s Digg saturation level is.
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I keep wondering two things, why does the RIAA continue to persecute people, and more importantly why do people do stupid enough things to keep getting prosecuted?

That organization exists for the sole purpose of suing the pants off of people, but they can only do so when people leave plenty of evidence about their activity - namely hosting content on their computers and allowing others to download it. Most of the time it seems these foolish people aren’t even aware that what they are doing by running Kazaa, eMule, Gnutella, or some other file sharing application puts them at risk.

But why in the world would anyone share their music, movie or software collections via open, anonymous connections? Especially when there are other virtually risk-free alternatives? (By the way, know your rights if RIAA comes calling.)
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I’ve been holding off on sharing this information, which is really mostly rumor and speculation, up to this point - but Google is supposedly readying the launch of a new cellular phone which will come GPS and have built in access to Google Maps, Gmail, Calendar and Docs.

Google previously bid for the FCC’s 700MHz wireless spectrum, one which could be used to operate a new Google cellular phone service, and as I previously reported they acquired GrandCentral (I handed out around 75 invites to the beta service), a unified messaging platform which provides “find-me, follow-me” service, voice mail, and other goodies.
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Google recently launched a pretty amazing program clearly designed to build out their base of information for the Google Local Search. And only a company like Google could actually afford to do this! They are honestly paying up to $10 for each business you manage to take photos of and get updated in Google’s database.

All of the program details can be found on the Google Local Business Referrals page. So if you’ve got a little extra time, a digital camera, and a computer check it out and you can pick up a little extra spending cash.
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I bet that headline got everyone’s attention! No, I’m not starting up an illicit internet drug trade, but I am testing out a search engine theory. (By the way, if you want to help test this theory please link to this article.)

Aaron Wall proposed the question, “How Easily do Authoritative Sites Rank for New Keywords?” over on SEOBook.com, and he pointed out that Matt Cutts managed to rank pretty high by just using the words Buy Cheap Viagra in one post. His postulate is that the relative authority of Matt’s site (a Google PR7 rank) drove his rankings towards the top of the Google results for a search for the terms “buy cheap viagra”.

Well, I figured I’d throw a little weight in the ring and help test this theory. If Aaron’s postulate is correct, I would think that this article should eventually even outrank Matt’s post given that OMB has a Google PR8. Plus I have noticed what seems to be this effect quite often. After I write an article it seems to appear high for searches with the key words.
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Google recently acquired a company called GrandCentral, which I was preparing to do a review of anyway after testing the service out a bit. This only makes the offering all that much stronger, and in my opinion it’s something everyone should try out.

Here is the Google acquisition announcement which took about 2 seconds to download directly from my voice mail:

GrandCentral links all of your phone numbers together and layers on a TON of new features. How? They are giving people One Number…for Life - a number that’s not tied to a phone or a location - but tied to you. This number will consolidate your voice messaging, route calls to wherever you are, and even allow you to screen your calls.
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Google has teamed up with the Holocaust Museum to create a complete interactive map that can be viewed in Google Earth which shows the ongoing slaughter and torture of millions of people in Darfur. You’d have to be living under a rock not to know this was going on, but it seems the “civilized world” is willing to turn a blind eye to Africa.

Anyway, if you don’t yet have Google Earth you can get it here. Once you have it, here is the interactive map which includes photos, videos and testimony.
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Google has launched an experimental service called Google Voice Local Search which makes local-business searches accessible over the phone.

And it’s free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. So stop dialing 411 and paying those astronomical Cell phone charges!

Here is a sample call I made to demonstrate:

To try it yourself, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.
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I’m a big fan of Google Earth because frankly it lets you do things that no other software has ever allowed before. That, and the fact that it’s completely FREE! (Thanks Google!)

Google Earth will allow you to plan trips, see the planet from a satelite view, and generally waste time. It is also required for some of the posts on my blog which offer a virtual tour of famous places.

Here are a few quick videos that demonstrate exactly why you should download and install this free software if you haven’t already!
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