Cheese in Berkeley

Fingerhut Favs

2009-11-10T08:22:00.001-08:00

My Birthday Wishes are below ... don't be shy

Favorites from SEMA

2009-11-04T09:16:00.001-08:00

These are my favorites

All my favorite out brands in a convenient widget

2009-10-01T00:11:00.001-07:00

Can you say "Xmas" list ... I will be posting my favorites in the widget below. If you are so inclined, feel free to grab it yourself or endulge me with a gift... ok if not me, then your favorite backpacking buddy.

Lots to Like At Lucky

2009-09-29T14:07:00.001-07:00

buy me these pants and i will be your friend

UncommonGoods

2009-08-20T09:59:00.001-07:00

UncommonGoods

Shared via AddThis

Found some cool products from Auto Anything

2009-06-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Check out the cool products I found at Auto Anything.

Weblog Conference

2007-02-24T09:43:00.000-08:00

Interesting conference in Boulder next month. Check out the program at the conference site.

Redfin is shaking up the real estate brokerage pricing model

2007-01-08T21:59:00.000-08:00

Attended the Inman Realestateconnect Conference in NYC today. Of the three opening session panels, the discussion between Alan Dalton (www.move.com) and Glenn Kelman (www.redfin.com) was the best. Redfin is shaking up the brokerage pricing model by offering a fixed price for listing and selling your home ($2K + 3% for the buyer agent Glenn said) and rebating 2/3 of the commission if they represent you as the buyer. Glenn says the company can be profitable with this pricing model. They cut back on the services they provide the client and focus on the negotiation and close process. They have honed their internal business processes through the use of technology and are passing those savings on to the consumer. They won't pick you up and drive you to see a house. If you find your listings yourself on any one of the real estate search sites like www.trulia.com etc. you don't need the agent to be your driver.

Dalton argued, ineffectively, that Redfin would threaten the livelihood of conventional brokers .... and they can't state that they "save you money" because nobody knows what the sale price would be if a conventional broker represented you. I don't buy that Redfin is driving brokers to the breadlines. If an agent can deliver a much better deal than a Redfin agent for the buyer or seller, then let's see the numbers. Otherwise, that argument is just a good old scare tactic.

Look for Redfin to continue to shake up the market as they expand eastward, starting in Boston in 2007.

Google sandbox is for crooks not us honest guys

2006-12-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

Came up with a great idea for a fun website - journal writing one step at a time. That's what the Word Count Journal is. Spent hard earned money to build it (thanks to our friends at Makalumedia, we got tremendous value for our investment). So we are getting ready for our private beta and I start sending out some announcements about the site. I hop over to Google expecting to see a link to our site when I search "word count journal" - no one else would consider using these three terms together. But then the news gets bad. I learn about the dreaded Google Sandbox. It is more like sitting in pergatory. The amazing Google, spanning the web with its mighty bot only to put my new site in a sandbox where no one can find it. Give me a break. Ok, they do it to stop the spammers, but why take us good guys down at the same time. All I ask is for my mom to be able to find our URL when she types "word count journal" into Google. That is the way most of us find websites these days anyways.

2006-12-17T23:36:00.000-08:00

Just like the Confucian saying that the longest trip begins with the
first step. And so I am back to the blog. We are rapidly approaching the launch of our first application, Word Count Journal. If all went well with the development team this weekend, we will start the private beta of the application. We are targeting a January 1, 2007 launch. Why New Year's Day?

Because writing a journal is one of the those many tasks that we want to do, but never dedicate the time to it. So, with Word Count Journal, you can take it one word at a time. Start the discipline of writing your journal and we'll make it easy to keep going. It does not have to be a public blog, since you can make any journal private or public. You don't have to write alone either. You can form a journal writing group of friends, classmates or fellow-enthusiast.

The Word Count Journal is brought to you by the good people at Dingers! We aim to produce applications and games that are entertaining and educational. There is no charge to this application. If you like it please spread the word...and the Word Count Journal.

2006-09-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

It was easier to name each of my children than it is to get a website or blog name these days. Much has been written about the Domain Name Hell, well it even extends into naming a blog. My first several choices for a name were taken, so I settled on Cheese in Berkeley. Cheese is my best friend's favorite nickname for me and Berkeley is my hometown.

Over the past 6 months, I have gotten into the blogosphere. Been reading lots of blogs to get a sense of what folks are writing and what feels right for me. I am stoked about the direction of the web - a forum for contribution and discourse. A place to state my views and comment on those of others.

I have several projects underway that will make various marks on the web and the lives of people. One project, Catalog Choice, will turn the mail catalog industry on its head. At Catalog Choice (still working on a site name - all the good ones are gone), users can select the mail catalogs that they want to receive and those that they wish to discontinue - what a novel concept. We can actually have a say as to what enters our mailbox! We hope that this site will lead to improved efficiency in the mail catalog industry and be embrased by consumers and merchants.

Another project that I am working on is the Word Count Journal, which is not up yet, but is coming soon. WCJ is the join partnership with my friend Daniel and Matt and his team of awesome developers at Makalumedia. WCJ is a journal writing approach that has you start with 1 word on day 1, 2 words on day 2 and so on until you are done with your journal. Nothing like starting slow and getting on a roll. More on this when we are ready to launch.

We have a bunch more ideas for cool websites. Stay tuned for more.