A pretty basic question that entrepreneurial team faces early on is how equity should be divided among founders to ensure “fairness”.  There are tons of unforseen problems that might come up over time such as some partners needing to leave the company, wanting to sell some of their shares, or simply not contributing equally to a venture.  It is a worthwhile exercise to think about all of the potential problems that your founding team may face. If you think these problems won’t come up because your team is all besties of friends, think again. Every entrepreneur should watch Startup.com to see the brutal reality of how badly teams can break up. Here is a trailer:

There is a myriad of actions that teams can take when issuing stock to prevent some problems, but here are a couple of common practices that I’d recommend:

1. Vesting.  Vesting refers to the concept of acquiring ownership of an asset (such as owning stock in a company) over a specified period of time.  For startups, this is a valuable provision that helps recalibrate ownership of the company based on whether the founders continue to remain involved in the company.  It prevents the problem of “free-riding”, where a founder may decide to leave the company, but retains an unfair amount of ownership while others are putting in the hard work.  Take this example:

   
   “Sally, Bob, and James decide to found a company called ‘Widgets Inc.’.  They believe they will contribute equally to the venture and therefore each want to own one third of the company.  They incorporate their company and issue 12,000 shares (they just picked an arbitrary number) with each founder owning 4,000 shares.  Two years into the company, James wants to leave the company for personal reasons.  Based on their initial share distribution, James still continues to own one third of the company even though he is no longer contributing to the company!  James thinks that his ownership is justifies because he had put a lot of work into the company, but Sally and Bob argue that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to grow the company!  This sucks for Sally and Bob because they are working their butt off and still have to give James one third of any profits that they create!” 

   What the founders should have done is to create a vesting schedule, where they could have agreed to distribute their shares over a period of time contingent upon their continued involvement.  For example, they could have agreed that each founder will be granted 4,000 shares with 25% of their shares to vest at the end of their first year, and the remaining 75% of shares to vest monthly over the next three years.  As a result, James would get 2,000 shares after working at Widgets Inc. for two years.  After 4 years, James’ ownership would thus be diluted to 20% rather than 33% in the first scenario.  The 20% ownership is due to the fact that James has 2,000 shares from 2 years of work, and Sally and Bob each have 4,000 shares from 4 years of work.  Problem solved! 

   If you want to take this ‘fairness’ concept even further, you can come up with ways to grant options and stock over time based on performance of each founder.

2. Rights of first refusal and co-sale.  Rights of first refusal and co-sale is actually two provisions that are often clumped together.  It is a provision that prevents a shareholder from selling their shares without allowing the company or other shareholders to either purchase the shares themselves (right of first refusal)or participate in the sale (right of co-sale).  Let’s first talk about the right of first refusal with the example above and see how this helps the founders:

   
   “James leaves after 2 years and rather than holding onto his 2,000 shares, his friend, Omarosa, wants to buy his shares for $100,000.  Sally and Bob hate Omarosa, and they would prefer to buy the shares from James themselves.  However, James already promised the shares to Omarosa (maybe he even intentionally does that to piss off Sally).  Sally and Bob are therefore upset!”

   With the right of first refusal, Sally and Bob would have an option to buy the shares from James before he can sell it to Omarosa.  Now let’s see an example of how the right of co-sale works:

   “James and Bob have both been working at the company for 2 years and they both need some cash to pay their rents.  They hear that Omarosa may be interested in buying 2,000 shares for $100,000.  As a result, both of them try contacting Omarosa to sell their shares.  However, James gets to Omarosa first and sells her all of his 2,000 shares for $100,000.  Bob is now screwed and now has to live in the streets.”

   The right of co-sale would have allowed Bob to equally participate in the sale of shares to Omarosa.  If Omarosa wanted to buy 2,000 shares, both Bob and James would have been able to equally sell 1,000 shares each and get $50,000 each. 

As I ate my breakfast this morning, I had another Get Smart realization. 

You see, every morning at breakfast, I prepare my bowl of cereal or oatmeal and fruit.  My breakfast routine is pretty boring, which is why breakfasts will rarely be featured on the blog.  If you don’t see a picture of what I ate for breakfast, you can just assume that I had a banana and cereal.  Again.

Another part of this breakfast routine?  After I finish MY breakfast, I always look over at my husband’s plate, nod my head at his peanut butter toast, and raise my eyebrows.  He promptly gives me a bite.

This is not very “get smart.”  Sure, that bite of toast might not matter that much.  But bite after bite, morning after morning– that adds up.  So do all the bites I swipe from his lunch and dinner.  I admit it– I’m a bite stealer.  I am constantly picking off of my husband’s plate.  Even if we’re having the EXACT same meal, I steal some of his bites– in my mind, they just look better!  And of course, if the situation were reversed, I would stab his hand with a fork, but because he is a lot sweeter than me (truly, he is), he just lets me do it.

I seem to have convinced myself that bites taken from other plates don’t really count…and of course they do!

This morning, when I caught myself looking over at Ryan’s PB toast, I stopped and thought, “Listen…you’re eating your cereal.  It tastes very good.  Let the man eat his peanut butter toast in peace!”

And I did.

ps- Check out Tina’s post on Health.com about Thanksgiving Diet Fouls…the tips fit right in with my Get Smart plan!

I love, love, love going home.  I like my family to a point of weirdness.  Maybe it’s because I’ve had to move so far away for school and work, or maybe it’s just because I start to appreciate family more and more as I grow older, but going home, to me, is the ultimate treat.  We never do anything crazy– just a lot of relaxing and hanging out.  But to me, that’s the best part about it! 

Unfortunately, a big part of that relaxing for my family has always been EATING.  We are BIG eaters in my family.  We plan lunch as we eat breakfast, and dinner as we eat lunch.  We love to eat out.  We love to eat at home.  We love to eat food on a plane, we love to eat food on a train.  We love to eat food in the rain, we love to eat…

…but hate to gain! 

(thank you for allowing me that Seussian moment☺)

No one in my family has a weight problem.  I wouldn’t say any of us are *ahem* super-skinny, but as much as we love to eat, we love to exercise, so it’s always generally balanced out.  I would say that as a whole, we’re a pretty healthy bunch.

Unfortunately, over the last few years, I’ve noticed something pretty disturbing.  Every time I go home, I seem to pack on anywhere from 3-10 pounds.  I’ve never thought too much about it, because I usually lose it in the week or two after I leave.  I kind of think of going home as a vacation, and who doesn’t gain a little weight when they’re on vacation?

Still, it’s starting to get old.  More and more, I’ve started to think, wouldn’t it be nice if that just didn’t happen?  If I could go home feeling healthy, and leave feeling just as good?  Because really, for me, that’s what it’s about– feeling good.  I’m at a healthy weight for my height.  Sure, there are things that I’d change about my body if I could (like 99.9 % of the population), but overall, I’m pretty happy with where I’m at.  So while three or four pounds might not seem like a lot, it’s not really the pounds that I hate.  I hate feeling bloated, and feeling like my jeans are just a bit snugger than they were when I got off the plane a week earlier.  Plus, I hate the way it makes me feel about myself– like I have no willpower or self-control.  I should be able to say no to seconds or that third glass of wine, but when I go home, I am the ultimate yes (wo)man.  Sure, I’ll have another piece of pie!  Nothing counts on vacation!

Except that it does count.

Last night, we enjoyed that delicious Cooking Light crumble.  It was sweet and delicious, and pretty healthy too.  But…that was not the original dessert choice.  Earlier yesterday, my mom showed me the recipe for the cake she was planning on bringing over for dessert.  It was a pumpkin pie cake, and it looked delicious.  But as I looked over the recipe, I was taken aback– three sticks of butter?? One and a half cups of sugar?  AND an entire package of cake mix?  Geez!

I talked to my mom about how indulgent the cake looked, and we agreed to look around for a healthier recipe.  Enter the Cooking Light crumble.  We made that instead, and it was delicious!  Not delicious in the way that something with three sticks of butter is, but still, it was really very good. 

And that’s the thing– I’m all for desserts with three sticks of butter.  On birthdays, or holidays, or big celebrations, I think that fancy, indulgent desserts should be enjoyed to the fullest.  But to just have a dessert like that on a regular old Sunday night?  That’s a little much. 

That’s when it occured to me– the reason I gain so much weight when I go home is that I never view the days and nights as regular old weeknights (which is what they are).  I’ve convinced myself that every day is a vacation, and every night a celebration.  And when you’re in that mindset, the pounds pile on pretty quickly.

Last night’s dessert swap got me thinking– what if I focused on making smart choices when I was home?  Nothing big, nothing that would leave me feeling deprived…just little choices that might add up to less weight gain.  Little choices that would leave me feeling happy and healthy at the end of the week, as opposed to bloated and blah. 

My goal for this week is to work on making these smart choices.  I’ll call them “get smart” choices, and I’ll be posting them throughout the week!

Get Smart Choice #1:

Normally when I wake up, I stumble into the kitchen and make a HUGE pot of coffee, which I then proceed to pour a GIANT cup from.  I’ve never really thought about it, but starting the day on such a dehydrating, jitter-inducing note can’t be that great for my body.

So, this morning, I still made the giant pot of coffee.  But instead of drinking a cup right away, I drank a HUGE cup of water, as well as some OJ with spirulina and Amazing Grass SuperFood.  I feel healthier already ☻

You know what makes Amazing Grass sludge taste better? 

Drinking it from a glittery penguin cup meant for a 3 year-old:

DElicious…not really.  Choke-down-able, is more like it ☺.

I encourage you to make get smart choices throughout the holidays…feel free to share them with me! I’d love to hear how you stay healthy during this time of indulgence!

Princess Diaries, Get Smart, Devil Wears Prada… a short list of the movies this babe have acted in.

She is of such sweet appearance that I believe guys just want to take care of her, especially when she looks at you with those HUGE… eyes of hers… Well, the fact is she does not appear in roles that are all so sweet and nice. She acted in a movie Havoc, where she portrays a young lady, in her schooling days, taking her chance and wanting to experience the “bad”, “havoc” life. In the movie, she bares her breasts and appeared in a few intimate scenes that will shock those who still have the sweetie pie image of her stuck to their minds…

Below are a few pictures of courtesy of www.popholic.com, with her in a cleavage exposing dress, in which she auctioned herself of for a date with 3 fans…. for $12000… I wonder if those fans can even concentrate in their meals if they see her big beautiful eyes electrifying them, together with that plunging necklines… god… I want that meal.

There’s something wonderful about silence. In our modern lives, we so seldom have any of it. When was the last time you did anything — other than see a movie in a theater–without some additional soundtrack–no traffic, no talk radio, no music, no cellphones.  Silence, or at least some muted-volume version of life, is for me way up there as a much valued commodity, which no one has enough of, but is often under-valued. The original TV show “Get Smart” had a silly device for secret conversations between Maxwell Smart and the Chief called the “Cone of Silence.” It always cracks me up, but it makes a point: there are times when you just need some silence.

Story time

Let me paint you a picture. As a freshman at University of Texas at Austin, I lived in the Jester dorm (a somewhat ironic title, but the actual name of the place, no joke)–ten floors, 3,000 of your best friends.  Consequently it was very noisy and I found it hard to sleep, having grown up in what by comparison was the ultra-quiet suburbs. The freshmen neighbors with whom I shared a wall were fond of cranking their music after midnight. I like music, and I like loud music–a lot–but I also realized that I would not be able to survive and thrive on less than 4 hours of sleep each night.  My neighbors also had a habit of bouncing a rubber ball, a Spaldeen to be exact, against the wall at random hours of the day or night. Try reading or sleeping with “pah, dah, pause, dah, pah, pause” –wall, floor, catch, floor, wall, catch–for an hour. (Side note:  neither of these “party hearty” guys made it to sophomore year, but I digress.)

To cope with this noise level, I bought a pair of good headphones, not ear buds, full enclosed earphones. With them on, I could hear practically nothing of the outside noise. Even better, with the Classical FM station on low volume, wearing these in bed at night was something akin to an isolation chamber, but without the mind- and body-altering effects as seen in the 1980 sci-fi/cult/schlock film “Altered States,” in which William Hurt is magically transformed into a caveman by peyote.  With the headphones on, I slept well, passed my classes, graduated and went on the graduate school.

Story No.2

Later in life, I began to work more seriously as a professional writer and editor. I edited a few big books (100,000+ words) for an art museum, reviewing and revising the work of university professors and museum curators. At the same time, I set up a home office and began to work on projects there.  At the time, my kids were little and everyone who has kids knows that containing their volume at home is not really possible without Draconian measures. I remembered my college  strategy for coping with noise, but writing with music on proved too distracting. So I got a pair of ear protectors, like the ones used on a shooting range or flight line. When I put them on I would tell my wife, “I’m going into the ‘Cone of Silence’ for about an hour, so if you need to talk to me about anything important, please come see me face-to-face.” That worked, mostly. It required some give-and-take from all concerned. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am sorry to confess that this spillage of my work obligations into my personal life did not help my parenting or my marriage.)

But the main point is this: sometime you may need to establish your own Cone of Silence to deal with distractions. In the office, I’ve seen people use headphones in cube-land. For those that have an office door, just close it when you need to focus, and to be polite, put a sign outside that says simply “Please knock.” People will realize that you are working on something for which you need to focus and they will generally save non-essential interruptions for a time when your door is open.

For many writers, artists, graphic/web designers and even some computer programmers, they require a quiet place to work, apart from coworkers or family. That’s why people who have the means have private offices within their homes or a shack in the country. In some big cities, there are businesses where you rent a desk. Ginny Wiehardt, a Fiction Writing Guide at About.com, has posted a list of such places around the nation and the world at http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/startingtowrite/tp/urbanspaces.htm (thanks Ginny!) The key point here is that carving out a place and time to focus is a universal desire that you share with many other people.

You just have to make a step forward to try. Try headphones, ear protectors, a private room, a rental desk. The main things is to afford yourself a Cone of Silence that works for you. Send more ideas and examples!!

Agent Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) är analytikern som är ny på fältet och när CONTROL-högkvarteret utsätts för ett attentat av terrororganisationen KAOS måste han teama upp med den proffsiga Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). Tillsammans ska de nu med sina respektive talanger undanröja det hot mot världsordningen som den hemlige ledaren för KAOS utgör.

Det är en rätt festlig komedivariant av James Bond och man har inte sparat på krutet för att göra detta till en av filmbolagets nya kassakossor. Jag är dock lite osäker på hur framgångsrik man kommer vara då succén inte är helt självklar. Idag översköljs vi av den ena actionfilmen häftigare än den andre så konceptet med hemliga agenter känns inte direkt innovativt. För övrigt är hela Get Smart en remake av en gammal TV-serie från mitten av 1960-talet. Actionscenerna är det inget större fel på men humorn kunde ha varit lite vassare. Sedan vete fåglarna om det är rätt av sätta Carell i den här typen av roll? I övrigt ser vi bland annat Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp, David Koechner och James Caan.

Betyg: 3

I revisited an old video of Ken McCarthy and Marc Andreesen from the first internet marketing conference in San Francisco in 1994.  It’s mindblowing to time travel back to 1994 and see how much has come true, how much changed, and how much has remained somewhat the same. 

Here are a couple of points highlighted in bold from Ken’s section plus some thoughts from 2009:

1. The internet’s revolutionary power as a distribution network will transform content.  Definitely a true statement, and even more disruptive than imagine.  It’s neat to hear Ken mention how the internet could be a powerful tool for enabling new forms of content such as being a tool for independent film producers.  Given the limitations of the time, Ken stops at saying that it could enable distribution of trailers.  Who would’ve thought Jaman.com for indy films.
2. The internet to transform customer service: discussion boards are the future!  The internet continues to amaze the world in creating new ways for people to interact, including ways for businesses to interact with their customers.  Hello, social networking.  Hello, Twitter. 
3. “Imagine if you had a 1,000 subscribers… that’s a nice little business.”  Today, 1K users is barely enough for a sample testing group, let alone a beta product, let alone a business.  Bummer dude.
4. Let’s work together with the existing media ecosystem.  Or not.  Now that we have enough confidence and staying power, the industry is all about disruption and even shrinking markets. 
5. Bandwidth problem will get solved.  Always bet on technology. 

Marc Andreesen’s portion has great info as expected.  Here are some that I found amusing:

1. “We tried NOT to do two things: invent anything new; solve any hard problems.”  For startups, determining what NOT to build is just as important as deciding what to build.  Marc highlights that they will not be trying to solve the problem of ’search’ – who would’ve expected Google to build an empire there.  Entrepreneurs can often find opportunities by understanding of what tough problems are not being solved by existing companies.
2. “It took us three months to realize interactive TV wouldn’t work and may never work…”  Online video has exploded in the past few years with mobile video on the horizon.  I personally find it one of the most interesting and fun areas to explore as both a consumer and techie.
3. The applications that are going to be successful over the next several years are the ones that will enable communication.  Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 aren’t really that different after all.
4. The future: deeper integration into desktop environment.  True to a degree, but then again, why not just skip the desktop and live in the cloud.   Marc’s other predictions on a more ‘graphical, immersive navigation’ and convergence are still pushing forward today.
5. Techies love Dilbert comic strips.  This has certainly stood the test of time.

I really liked this movie. It was funny and really enjoyable. I thought Steve Carrell was excellent and has proven once again that he can definitely carry a big hollywood movie. The rest of the main four actors are also good, though the supporting cast (namely the techs and analysts of Control) were out of their league here.
The one thing i didn’t like were the digs at George Dubya. I found them to just be unnecessary and distracting (though i do think James Caan is great). But most everything made me laugh. There is a real kind of classic humour to this movie which is refreshing.
Anyways, bottom line is its a very good movie and you should go see it.

8/10

Get Smart

Proof, if it were ever needed, that Steve Carell is funny in absolutley anyting.

A distinguished theoretical physicist  sought Rocky’s counsel for predicting today’s Dow Jones closing price. In addition to unlocking the secrets of the universe, this physicist seeks to unlock the prize in a “Guess the Dow Jones” contest.  (The winner receives the actual closing price in dollars.)

Rocky usually leaves such precise speculations to Trophy Wife, as Rocky considers  ”good fundamental analysis”  to be successfully picking a pair of matching socks.  (Or at least they seem to match in the darkness of dawn.)

Rocky realized that the physicist’s challenge was too big for his HP-45 Calculator, so he borrowed Virgil Starkwell’s X-22 computer, and fired it up for the first time in 40 years…

The X-22 generated four possible closing prices:
9507.90
9728.64
9822.52
9955.41

[Disclosure: As the price dispersion demonstrates, Rocky does not provide investment advice. However, readers are encouraged to learn more about the legendary X-22 computer by watching the YouTube video embedded below. Warren Buffett will probably enjoy this approach too.]

GetSmart

Originally uploaded by butterstud

So I went and saw Get Smart over the weekend… FUN!

If you’re not a fan of Steve Carell you probably won’t like the movie. He IS Steve Carell in this movie.

Now, I vaguely remember the show back in the day. I remember the Cone of Silence and the Shoe Phone (both of which are in the movie), but plot-wise i’m hard press to remember any of that. The most Don Adams exposure I got was his voice talent on the awesome Saturday morning cartoon Inspector Gadget. That was definitely a must watch for me!

But back to the movie!

It was fun movie what can I say! Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway were awesome together. And you can’t go wrong with cameo’s of Bill Murray and Patrick Warburton. Oh and of course General Zod as the big baddie.

Lots of good quips from Carell kept the theater in chuckles. Anne Hathaway was a good match-up for keeping Max in check and out of trouble (some of the time).

What I also liked was they had a few homages to the old show; the car, the Shoe Phone, the suite, the Cone of Silence and a couple of Max’s trademark phrases like “Missed it by that much”.

There weren’t a lot of special effects or slapstick which I also think was nice in keeping the movie a ‘movie’ and not a 110 minute comedy sketch. Not much else bad to say about it! Definitely a should see

Arrested Development

So after you all made your feelings known about Dancing With The Stars in this week’s poll, Tom DeLay went and pulled himself out of competition due to injury …although Debi Mazar was sent home by the judges… so actually, twice as many of you were right in your opinions of who you thought  should go home.

But let’s talk about both the little and the big screen…because there’s lots of crossing over. Not just actors and actresses, either. What about entire shows? Happens all the time.  As in Sex and the City (with a sequel in the works) Star Trek, Batman, Get Smart, Charlie’s Angels, Scooby-Doo, The Fugitive, etc. With this in mind, there are currently several hit TV shows with  rumored movie adaptations in the works (and I emphasize the term “rumored” because some of these take a long, long time to make it to our local cineplex), and I’m adding one that’s not even rumored but they’re enjoying a reunion of sorts right now –and they have zillions of fans anyway, so why not? Here goes: voice your choice in today’s featured poll and let us know which TV show you’d be most excited about seeing as a movie.

1) Friends

2) Arrested Development

3) Seinfeld

We’ve been taking for granted what I think may be a central insight:

The smartphone is for the masses, not a high-end niche of techno-geeks and status seekers.

Within 5 years, smartphones will represent roughly 50% of mobile device shipments, 75% of device market revenues, and 90% of industry gross margin potential.  In developed economies, smartphones will represent 40-50% of the installed base of users.  In 7-10 years, virtually all mobile phone subscribers will carry a smartphone.  Different markets will develop at slightly different rates based on replacement cycles, how prepay vs. postpay plays out, etc.  But the end result will be the same:  People will own smartphones like they own toasters or microwaves or shoes.

Quick messaging devices (QMDs), feature phones, and basic mobiles are the niche devices:  A smaller segment of users willing to accept a constrained experience in exchange for…  In exchange for what, exactly?

In the US, the $99 value menu is already dominated by late model smartphones such as the iPhone 3G and earlier Blackberries.  In some other markets, the iPhone is already free with a subscription.  Costs and prices will only go down from here.

Displays, memory, processing power, battery life, wireless broadband connectivity – all are getting cheaper by the day.  The major barrier to smartphone adoption was the user experience.  The smartphones of three years ago (think Symbian or Windows Mobile) could do lots of things but none of them very well.  And the added capabilities would come at a steep price premium.  Under those conditions, people chose a device with limited capabilities – a targeted device that worked well for the activities that a particular customer or segment cared about.   A device that could be squeezed into a low enough price point to attract a wide enough audience to recover all the non-recurring engineering costs associated with the broad product line required in such a market.

But these conditions no longer apply.  The smartphones of today and tomorrow (think iPhone, Android, Blackberry, WebOS) are joyfully easy to use, and can meet all of these customer requirements in just a few form factors.  The functionality of a smartphone is as seemingly infinite as that of a PC – perhaps more so as many additional use cases are opened up by the anytime, anywhere availability of having a smartphone in your pocket.  Costs will come relentlessly down.  Performance and capabilities will improve.  Late model and “pre-owned” smartphones will find their way to the bottom of half of the market, either shipped to developing markets or sold on Ebay or Craigslist.

How will the market be different with billions of smartphone users?  How will the world be different?  These are the fundamental questions facing our clients.

Thanks to Officer Richard Lee of the So. Pasadena Police, the StarCarCentral.com gang showed up in force for the South Pasadena police and fire open house and car show Sunday Sept 20th!

It’s a different line up at evert star car show, and this one was no different! As Officer Lee has shown us great hospitality in years past, the guys were eager to shine up their famous movie and TV cars to sponsor this event.

No it’s not a decepticon transformer (that got sold to some collector in Texas) just the new cool police cars that opened the event!

PULL OVER!! Not quite as intimidating, but I want one of these for the back lot! They look like a lot of fun, and a step in the right direction for those personal hovercrafts I was promised in Popular Science like they had on Johnny Quest!
But I digress….

From left to right, here’s who was there! These two just have to be parked together! Lou and Lynda with her lemon squares (and the stripped tomato, from Starsky and Hutch!) were first in line, and next we were so happy to have Dave with his General show up with his family and support the police and fire dept. His car was cleaner than I ever saw the dukes car on TV!
Charger Steve and Dave got to swap General Lee trivia…. I mean important details on their cars!

Sue brought her Get Smart Sunbeam. Her “Max” didn’t seem to mind the sun, and posed for photos all day in a three piece suit!

Brian brought his Bond car complete with a new poster featuring his car! He got to talk obscure star car with a few of our fans, including one who is working on the CHiP’s Gold Firebird (Paunch’s car) and he may find a Simon and Simon Power Wagon….

Jerry’s Herbie is always well loved and photographed, and this was no exception. He had some sort of double cheeseburger creation that looked amazing for lunch, thanks again to the SPPD for feeding all of us so well!
Jerry had a special visitor, the star of Herbie goes to Monte Carlo Joaquin Garay III showed up and posed for a photo!


Next was Paul’s Back to the Future Delorian, and thanks to the electrical hook up, the center section of our display of famous movie and TV cars came alive! Paul put on a great show with lights, sounds and smoke, but this time he had competition!

Oscar plugged in his cd player, and had the theme to Magnum P.I. coming from under his Ferrari!
Next to him Alex and his pristine Knight Rider KITT was chatting with the crowd. “Where are your pants?” is still fun to hear KITT say randomly to someone!  Alex decided to take the day off from working on Knight Rider stuff and spend the day with us!   

Continuing the crime fighter line up, the batmobile quietly refrained from showing off, and let Batman, Wonder Woman, Batgirl and Robin do all the showboating for the happy photographers and fans!


Only at StarCarCentral.com events can you get this photograph! Nate Truman having a chat with batgirl, wonderwoman, Jason “Buckaroo” Red ranger, with a few unusual cars in the foreground!


A special treat just for the police theme was Brandy’s Mayberry RFD patrol car, and it was great to spend some time with Charger Steve! It’s been a while, as he heads up the San Diego Chapter of Star Car Central, heck, he practically IS the whole chapter with all his cars!
The excitement is growing for his Del Mar show in just a few weeks!
Click the link to sign up your car, spaces are limited, and Charger Steve always puts on a great party!
Finishing off our line up in the prime spot infront of the police HQ was Vic and Dana, and their great Blues Brother’s police car!

(Cool) Hats off to them, for staying in the sun with black Suits and ties on all day, working the crowd! Note to self: Once you give Dana a Microphone, don’t expect to get it back any time soon! He’s a crack up, and he’s got a million one liners! Not sure how they did on tips, but I know they got fed well!


Jason stopped by with his Herbie to take some photos and head out, and in his travels he found this “sort of” A-Team van, hey at this point, I will consider it…..

Of course Jason always on the lookout for a photo op, convinced all the super heroes to mosey over to HIS car for a quick shot!

Thanks to Scott and Vicky and their two “wards” batgirl and Robin for taking their day to amaze little kids and pose for lots of photos in the hot sun! I don’t know how they do it! Also special award for being a trooper to Batgirl, who “played injured” with a hurt toe!
(I am not sure if I am allowed to expose their secret identities….)

So starts the busy season for StarCarCentral.com! Next week the biggest one day car show on the west coast, Crusin for a Cure at the orange county fair grounds, so stop by and say “HI!” we will be under shade between two of the front buildings! Charger Steve is bringing his BTTF Delorian (first movie style) to debut at the cruise this coming Saturday, Sept 26th 2009 but all of our other delorian pals will be gull winging their way to Vegas for a big Back to the Future convention!
Our own Paul Nigh will be showing his personal original props from the movie!

Actor William Schallert (Get Smart, The Patty Duke Show) joins Ed and Frankie to discuss his many roles in film and television, including his work with Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, John Sturges and Don Siegel:

http://media.podcastingmanager.com/9/3/5/3/3/142636-133539/Media/090709tvc29_2.mp3

At 4G World here in Chicago, the debate is raging on about the potential value of femtocells.  One audience member asked yesterday, “If I already have a 20 Mbps broadband connection and a WiFi access point, then why do I need a femtocell?”  I think he was on to something, but it is interesting to go back in time a little and see how the relative business cases for WiFi and femtocells have changed as the market evolved.

This feels like a confession:  Three years ago, I was a proponent of femtocells as a solution for indoor coverage, particularly when compared to WiFi UMA.  Too few devices had WiFi, and it seemed unrealistic to expect many users to adopt a solution that required such a constrained selection.  Different family members or different personnel within an organization may have very different device preferences or be at different points within the replacement cycle.

By contrast, femtocells allow installation of customer premise equipment where it is needed, and the problem is solved.  Individual users don’t need to change their behavior, and if the costs were right, then it could be an attractive solution for many households and businesses.  But the costs were too high (I priced one at $300 at the time) and commercial availability was and still is limited.

Fast-forward three years and the market has changed dramatically:

1. Lead by the iPhone and RIM’s Blackberry, smartphones are rapidly gaining share – in developed markets, the majority of users will have one within two device replacement cycles
2. The challenge is no longer only about indoor coverage, but now also includes an immediate need for additional data capacity to support high bandwidth applications
3. Leading smartphones will nearly all be WiFi-enabled

The result is that homeowners and businesses no longer need to pay to install a femto cell, and users no longer need to be constrained to specialized, suboptimal devices.  For most people, WiFi coverage already exists in their home and office, and these same people are likely to carry a WiFi-enabled smartphone now or within two upgrade cycles.

These smartphones are also responsible for driving a massive increase in data traffic and clogging up 3G networks.  WiFi provides a mechanism for operators to offload 30% or more of this traffic without massive upgrades — and in advance of LTE networks coming over the next 3 years.

Device makers are scrambling to offer smartphones that match Apple’s iPhone as the key competitive benchmark (including WiFi).  Mobile operators are responding to increasing smartphone usage with investments in WiFi assets and improvement of seamless switching between WiFi and wide-area cellular to offload some of the associated explosion of data traffic.  The way the iPhone restricts high-bandwidth applications so they can only be used over WiFi is a good example of a first step in this direction.

Meanwhile, the level of investment in femtocells is small by comparison, involves a tough value proposition to customers, and is focused on solving a problem that is largely taking care of itself.

My money is on WiFi.

The following Xbox 360 game reviews have been added: Dead Rising, Fable II, Gears of War, Halo Wars.

The following film reviews have been added: Crank 2, Brokeback Mountain, Get Smart, Role Models, Transformers.

The following album reviews have been added: Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King (Dave Matthews Band), Pins and Panzers (Plushgun).

Thanks for reading! Check out our contributors page for more information about how to contribute reviews or help out with other aspects of the site. Please share our link (http://relativelyreviewing.wordpress.com) on Facebook and Twitter!

— JD

Character actor William Schallert, a familiar face (and voice) for anyone who’s grown up watching television, will be our special guest on the next edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, premiering Monday, Sept. 7 at 10pm ET, 7pm PT on Shokus Internet Radio, with a rebroadcast Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 11pm ET, 8pm PT on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org.

Though often remembered for his regular roles as Patty Duke’s dad, Dobie Gillis’ teacher or the Admiral on Get Smart, William Schallert has played a wide variety of characters on stage, screen and television, in comedies and in dramas, for more than 60 years, including recent appearances in such top shows as True Blood, According to Jim, How I Met Your Mother, Desperate Housewives and the HBO movie Recount. Along the way he has worked with some of the top names in the entertainment industry. We’ll be talking about that and more when Bill joins us in our second hour.

In our first hour, Andrew Lee Fielding will join us as we look back at the career of bandleader Kay Kyser. Andrew’s book, The Lucky Strike Papers, is a history of such early network TV variety programs as Your Hit Parade, The Freddy Martin Show and Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge; his mother, Sue Bennett, was a featured singer on the Kyser show, as well as other musical variety shows of that era.

Ed Robertson
Co-Host, TV CONFIDENTIAL
Mon-Sun 10pm ET, 7pm PT
Shokus Internet Radio
Every other Tuesday at 11pm ET, 8pm PT
Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org
www.tvconfidential.net
blog.tvconfidential.net
Also available as a podcast via iTunes and FeedBurner

Cool poster on mozy.cam I saw on ffffound. See full size after the jump.