Good and bad news….

My MacBook Pro is working again. There was a problem with the settings files so every time I returned my files and libraries it started crashing again. So much for backups.

The bad news is that I have to install everything manually now.

And my calendar is empty so if you have an appointment with me please remind me!
(Posted with a Blackberry Pearl, sponsored by Blogads.nl)

The Next Web Conference and Social Networking?

We are planning the Next Next Web Conference on June 1, 2007. I’m spending some time on the website and we are talking to speakers. One thing we are thinking about is adding a Social Network to the thenextweb.org website.

I complain a lot about Social networks on my blog but I also see a huge benefit for them. If we could add a social network to the site that would mean that people would be able to contact each other before the conference and set-up meetings and have a more meaningful conference.

But we don’t want to re-invent the wheel either. We could just start a new Next Web group on one of the existing networks or download People Aggregator and install that.

Then there is Ning.com and KickApps which we could consider.

What are your ideas? Just a Wiki? Are there any other Social Networking sites that I am missing?

Still Looking: A MacBook Pro Install DVD!

My poor MacBook Pro is still down. I looked everywhere in my house but I can’t find that damned install DVD. As I wrote before, is there anyone in Amsterdam who owns a MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo 15 inch? If so please let me use your DVD for a few hours so I can re-install the system.

For Sale: First Generation Tom Tom Go

A few weeks ago I bought a new Tom Tom go. This means I now have a spare, first generation, Tom Tom Go for sale.

It isn’t new and I have used it extensively for years. On Marktplaats.nl this type of Tom Tom is offered for 150 to 250 euros.

Mine is available for €100…

Help Needed: Who lives in Amsterdam and owns a 15 Inch MacBook Pro?

Here is my problem: my MacBook Pro crashed and I need the original DVD to re-install the system. I can’t find my own DVD.

Do you own a 15 Inch MacBook Pro and do you live in Amsterdam?
Can I borrow your DVD for a few hours tommorow?

I’ll pick it up anywhere somewhere tommorow (Saturday) and return it on sunday.

Another MacBook Pro Crash…

How many times has my macBook pro crashed on me since I bought it? I don’t even keep count anymore. The main cause of crashes is sleepmode. Often when I close the MacBooks lid and then open it up again a few minutes I notice it has crashed on me but is almost restarted already. I’m a compulsive saver so I don’t lose that much work and fortunately Firefox simple restores all my sessions so most of the time it doesn’t even bother me that much.

But todays crash more resembles the famous Paris MacBook Pro Blackout of 2006 during Le Web 3. I opened the MacBook Pro which woke it up. But then, instead of immedialty entering my password, I let it sit there for a few minutes. Stupid!

After a few minutes I tried to wake it up again. This time it sort of woke up but all I got was a pitch black screen with only a cursor, which I could move arround. No login screen or anything. And no matter what I did it wouldn’t give me any other data. Escape, return, Command dot. Nothing. Just a system beep on every key I entered.

After a few minutes I decided to just restart the damn thing. And yes, now it won’t do anything anymore. Just like in paris. I’m staring at a blue screen again…

Luckily I now keep a Tiny Troubleshooting Guide from CreativeTechs in my Tumi which I can consult and I’m trying to restart with every combination of keys they are giving me. Oh, and the reason I was waking it from sleep was because I was about to make my monthly back-up.

UPDATE: I have tried EVERY shortcut and possible fix I could find. No luck. And I can’t find my start-up DVD anywhere. I restarted in Target Disk mode and checked the disk from a Powerbook. No problems found. My guess is that the System is corrupted and needs to be re-installed. But I can’t do that without the start-up DVD. Damn.

The Future Of LinkedIn

Patrick and I met the founder of LinkedIn once in Paris. We talked about our need for funding at the time for a while but he wasn’t really interested. The meeting felt awkward and inconvenient for all of us. Then Patrick mentioned that he was a very loyal LinkedIn member and Reid Hoffman suddenly looked very interested. I pitched in and told him it was the only serious social network we actually used. He loved it and started asking more questions. We ended up not doing any business together but he did give us feedback and we had fun discussing his ideas about LinkedIn.

A few days ago we had a meeting with Hanneke Vos who now works at Ruigrok/Netpanel. She wrote a paper on social networking and Hyves in particular. Marja Ruigrok then told us she had a profile on several social networks, including Hyves and LinkedIn, but didn’t really use them except to be ‘findable’.

Patrick then told her that that is exactely the ultimate goal of LinkedIn, which Reid Hoffman also recently explained in Paris during Le Web 3. LinkedIn is supposed to become the Google for People. If you are looking for a person you will want to use LinkedIn, not Google. Or maybe you WILL use Google but it will give you just LinkedIn results.

Next to being a Social Network and a way to search for people LinkedIn also serves as a Curriculum Vitae for some people. I sure use it like that. And not because I’m looking for a job but because it is convenient to have one place with a record of what I have done in the past.

Tessa, my girlfriend, has just started updating her LinkedIn profile this week. She didn’t use it seriously before but she looked at my profile and at the profiles of several of her co-workers and decided that she couldn’t stay behind. That is a sign that a service is about to breakthrough! If people look at something and think “I need to join or I will be left out” that means that something is happening.

Hyves, at least in the Netherlands, works the same for me and most of my friends. If they meet someone one of the first things they do is ‘Hyve’ them to see what kind of person it actually is. Not ‘Google’ them but ‘Hyve’ them!

Maybe the future of Social Networking isn’t so much in the actual social networking itself. After all, this becomes boring after a few days/weeks, and people stop adding many people once they reach a certain number of contacts.

My guess is the social networking aspect is mostly a viral growth engine that will stop growing once a certain critical mass is reached. After that the networking itself will slow down significantly and the main purpose of these networks will be offering extended personal pages with which people will be able to represent themselves.

CardScan: where is the Mac version?

On my desk is an ugly Dell. The only reason it is there is because I need it to use my CardScan Adapter. Why doesn’t CardScan produce a Mac version of its products?

I don’t get it…

Does anybody know of a competitor that offers the same product but with Mac OS X compatibility?