Eubie's notes

New York Times Shifting Careers blogger Marci Alboher profiles a bloggers who write about their job and seeks similar bloggers as a guide to those considering working in those jobs. She looks at a taxi driver, sales person, lawyers and others. Worth watching the blog to see who else turns up.

Not ready to buy a new car yet, but still checking that Honda keeps making a great vehicle in the Accord. Wonder if they’ve added a auxiliary jack for MP3 players other than an iPod. New York Times: All Grown Up, Like the Boomers Who Embraced It

More on how CNet is becoming the symbol of how old “new media” is having trouble competing against newer “new media” WSJ: New Media Icon Grapples With Newer Media Rivals — “The rise of blogs and online-ad networks has altered the landscape for Web-publishing efforts.”

Also today WSJ: Yahoo CEO Sees ‘Headwinds’

Yahoo’s net fell 23% and the Internet giant said it will cut about 1,000 jobs as it revamps to better compete with Google. CEO Yang said the company faces “headwinds” in 2008. Shares fell 11% after hours.

This week, WordPress gained in visibility with the infusion of $29.5 million into Automattic, the commercial arm of WordPress. One of the investors was The New York Times Company.

From TechCrunch: WordPress was honored twice at this past week’s Crunchies in the categories of “Most Likely to Succeed” and “Best CEO”.

Both WordPress and Moveable Type have large number of users, but WordPress’s camp seem more dynamic these days because it has been the underdog, and it was free to both personal and commercial users.

Switched to Moveable Type 4.01 this weekend. The switch went very smooth. Of course it should, since all I did was update a vanilla MT3 site to MT 4.

But this time, it’s different. I’ve been pleased with MT, but now I’m being tempted by WordPress. I’ve become more familiar with in in recent weeks, and I’m getting to detect some differences and appreciate a few things in WordPress, that I’m not seeing in MT. I don’t care to make the switch today, but I’m still evaluating and exploring with MT 4.

NY Times: Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular. Not much that wasn’t in Top-selling books written on mobile phones

Eric Zorn writes of 50 things I’ve learned in 50 years, a partial list in no particular order. You don’t have to be 50 to appreciate the advice.

The third longest-tenured employee of Microsoft is retiring later this, the NY Times reports. Jeffrey Raikes started on a farm in Nebraska and that’s where he’s returning. Before joining Microsoft in 1981, he worked at Apple. Mr. Raikes said that Microsoft understood that software would be a large business in a way that Apple did not.

USA Today: How some pros are managing their 401(k)s. The three say they are making no changes, but they are diversifying into real estate or health care funds.

Yale Press has published “The Illusions of Entrepreneurship” by Scott Shane and published a great quiz related to the book. I took the quiz and got 40%. Some very interesting stats from the quiz.

Among the ones I missed:
* What percentage of five-year-old businesses in the United States is home-based?
* What percentage of the U.S. labor force works in companies that are less than two years old?
* What percentage of the financing of new businesses less than two years old takes the form of debt?
* How much more likely are men than women to start businesses?
* What was the ratio of White to Black self-employment in 1910 and 1990?
* What percentage of start-up efforts each year have at least one employee ten years later?
* What is the most common reason why people start new businesses?