Yovav (Jay) Meydad's Personal Blog

What began over 20 years ago with my first PC running different MS-DOS versions, and then continued with various desktops and laptops I owned that ran different versions of Windows (3.0, 3.1, 3.5, 95, 98, ME, 2000, NT, XP — I have not tried Vista and probably won’t) has now come to a complete end.

I am happy to say that our house is now fully Apple friendly & running on Mac OS. I started this migration process a few month ago by equipping our living room with a Mac Mini that serves as a media center (running boxee). Shortly after that, I switched my work laptop from an IBM Notebook to a MacBook Pro and improved my productivity so much. And a few days ago, after the house’s PC was about to completely die and required to much administration, I decided to replace it with a Mac.

So, here it is, a new Mac Mini connected to a Logitech cordless Wave keyboard mouse combo and a ViewSonic 19″ LCD. What a great way to start 2009.

Just like Ouriel, I noticed yesterday that QassamCount began following me on twitter. I checked their twitter account and once I saw what this is about I immediately followed back.

Since then, in less than 36 hours, I am sorry to say that I have received 4 twits, broadcasted every time rockets were fired by Hamas terrorists, from Gaza strip, targeted to the Israeli Negev cities and villages, in attempt to kill innocent civilians and destroy their homes.

In this account a twit is more than just a status update, a new blog post announcement or a way to share a link to a cool site or photo. A twit sent from this account means a bombed house/street or (god forbid) an injured person(s).

Kudos to the operator(s) of this account for using Twitter to help increase the awareness of this terrible situation. My wish for the new year is that I will not receive any new twitter updates from QassamCount.

Follow QassamCount. It is important. And spread the word.

Interesting. Google is running a campaign on iPhones via AdMob to promote the google voice search app.

I saw it on QuickGold which is an app (great one – the Quicksilver version for iPhone) that can be installed only on a jailbroken iPhone.

This makes me wonder, does Google, a long time Apple partner, advertise on semi-illigal applications? Or is that a RON type of buy?

I am big football (a.k.a soccer) fan. I love to play, I had a season ticket for many years for Maccabi Tel Aviv‘s home game (I’ve been their fan for more than 30 years), and recently also coach my oldest son at AYSO which is something I highly recommend doing. It is very fun, rewarding and bonding.

Shortly after we moved to the US more than 6 years ago, we got our house connected to the Israeli Network. It is a pretty expensive premium TV channel ($20/month) and the programs are not that interesting (mainly news, politics, Israeli soap operas and reality tv) but the channel has the broadcasting rights for the Israeli Premier League games, and that was the main motivation for me to get connected.

In the first 3 years for our live in the US, I used to wake up early on Saturday morning and sit for 2 hours to watch the game of my beloved team. Using the DVR was not even an option back then since my mentality said that a game had to be watched live. There were a few games that were not broadcasted on the Israeli Network due to rights issues and I found myself watching games on a laptop in terrible quality on sites like Tapuz and others (imagine a guy who points a webcam at a TV and provides his own commentary using the microphone).

The last 3 years have been a disaster. My team sucks. And it is getting worse and worse every year. This led me to completly change the way I watch Israeli football. First, I started DVRing the games and watched them late at night once I am done with family activities during the day. This did not last much. I quickly switch from normal speed to a x4 speed which basically has 2 advantages:

• The game suddenly looks like it is an English Premier League / Spanish La Liga game. You can see players that are actually running!

• You don’t hear the terrible commentary.

That did not last as well. Even at the x4 speed I quickly got bored since no goals were scored, and the ball was not even getting close to the 16 meters box. Nothing was really happening at these games.

So, I increased the speed to x15, and then to x60 and later on to x300. Yes, you can not really see much when watching at this speed, but honestly, there was nothing to see. I simply kept my eyes focused on the upper left corner where the score/time label is and waited for the label to change. Once it changed, I would switch back to normal speed, rewind 30 seconds, watch the goal re-run and speed again to x300.

This year, since my team looks really pathetic, I have completely stopped doing that. I switched from wathing the full 90 minute games to watching only the Weekends Highlights show. But the truth is that the other teams in this league do not play much better compared to Maccabi, and all the games looks boring when watching at normal speed. So, the latest for me is that now I am watching the highlights show at x60 speed.

This is in a nutshall the state of Israeli football in 2009 from my point of view. And If you are one of those who look at FIFA ranking and thinks it tells a true story, you might want to think twice.

I would like to thanks my friend Roy Klieger who used to sit next to me at Maccabi’s home games for many years for the inspiration. A note he sent me regarding our team’s pathetic situation led me to turn a reply email into a post.

I just came across these holiday icons that appear on SERP pages for holiday related terms.

I wonder if that’s a way for Google to boost holiday sales grabbing people’s attention and pointing them to the sponsored results rail on the right.

Menorah (kw=Hanukkah)

Candy cane (kw=Christmas)

Candy cane (kw=Kawanzaa gifts)

This amusing new year’s greetings video made by First Round Capital and their long list of portfolio companies, located in so many places around the globe (it was nice for me to see the two Ramat Gan towers, and that London pub looks like a really cool spot).

What is common to all of these people who bust their asses trying make it big? They are happy!

So, if you fill miserable at what you currently do, think of making a change and starting (or joining) a start up. Who knows, by the end of 2009 you might be dancing next to Howard, Josh, Rob and Chris.

I am only now starting to recover from the Smashing Pumpkins concert I saw last week at the Gibson Amphitheater. It was one I am going to remember for years:

• The sound was great.
• The lighting was electrifying – check out this amazing flickr set.
• Diversified crowd – it was fun to see folks who grew up on the pumpkins 20 years ago next to youngsters who grow up on their music today. I wish that in 20 years I will get to take my sons to watch the 40 years anniversary.
• The set – the band played so well together and demonstrated their unique talent to play hard code alternative rock/punk, psychedelia and delicate ballads, and even an A Capella of “We only come out at night…”
• These should not be news to anyone, but Jimmy Chamberlin is a hell of a drummer.
• Billy was in a great mood, joked with the fans and shared some stories from the past. What can I say, even rock stars are as they grow up.

One last thing – If you are a fan like I am, treat yourself for the new year with a live recording of one of this tour’s performances. These are now for sale on LiveSmashingPumpkins ; If you are not sure whether you like the band or not, listen to the 30 seconds previews. You might change your mind.

Yossi Vardi chat with Kara Swisher at Le Web 08 on his new initiative – internet for the dead. Inspired by Gil Rimon.

Big buzz today around the revamped Flickr mobile site (see TC, RWW, Mashable), their “universal access point for all device types.”, but a simple test that I did on my iPhone shows that the folks at Sunnyvale have missed one important and frustrating issue that mobile users experience daily when accessing Flickr urls.

This is not the first time I write about the fact that a direct link to an image does not load in its mobile version. The solution is so simple, that I am amazed no one at Flickr caught this while building the new version. All they have to do is detect the UserAgent and in the case it is of a mobile browser, change “www.flickr.com” to “m.flickr.com”. A simple manual test proves it is working.

So from now and until it gets fixed by the Flickr folks, you can use this manual hack and edit the url in safari’s address bar whenever you get a link (via email or twitter) to a Flickr image.

flickr-on-iphone-manual-hack

It seems like there are mixed feelings about this new feature. I like it though. Why? Because it allows a video viewer to avoid the need of visiting YouTube.com to search for videos, and it keeps that users for a longer session on the sites he is on. Just like Snap Shots!