The Denver Business Journal has reported that two area interactive agencies have now merged to form Xylem CCI. I admire both companies and I feel that the merger will be good for them, the city of Denver and Imulus.

By joining forces, Creation Chamber brings it’s web development expertise to Xyleme which has been an area leader in Flash based interactive microsites. Creating a powerful union between design, development and complex interactive.

For the city of Denver, it helps to further strenghten the image that the  Denver / Boulder area is quickly becoming a real player in the marketing / advertising space.

For Imulus, we lose two high-end competitors and it creates more space at the mid-sized project level.

All in all, great news!

Yahoo, how is it that you’ve missed the boat on the whole pay-per-click model? How is it that after several years your system for managing PPC has actually devolved into a barely usable duct taped garbage heap that marketers run from?

I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt several times over yet you still underwhelm me. I’m at a loss for understanding why with even a highly profitable model like Google Adwords, you haven’t at least copied some aspects of Google Adwords. Just the other day I did some basic account changes and reporting in your system, it took me well over an hour to do several tasks which would take less the 15 minutes in Google.

How can I justify using your system? Your ROI is less then Google’s, you send less traffic then Google and your management interface is a nightmare?  Let’s get real, Microsoft AdCenter is the new kid on the block and it looks lightyears more developed then your system. You just don’t get it!

Last updated: 4/26/2007

OK for the past year or so I’ve been trying to share my iTunes library from my home to my office. Using my PowerBook with OSX 10.4, iTunes 7, Rendezvous Proxy and Hamachi I was able to pull this off and I love it!

I had trouble at first getting Hamachi to install and run on my system but the rest was pretty straight forward once I had Hamachi working, hence this tutorial to help the others out there looking to do the same!

Start Downloading
Here is the list of files you will need to get this process moving along. I’m going to assume you have iTunes 7 and OSX. I’m also assuming you have 2 Macs to try this on. I’ve tried this on the PPC and the Intel system with no problems.

Hamachi
TUN/TAP
HamachiX Graphical Interface
Rendezvous Proxy

Install the Goods
I started with TUN/TAP. Download the file and unzip it. It should produce a folder called TUNTAP_TIGER. Go into the folder and install all 4 packages, at first I just tried the TUNTAP_INSTALLER.MPKG and that failed to produce the results I needed, so run all 4 installers.

Before moving on to Hamachi you will need to enable ROOT user privledges on your Mac. Go into APPLICATIONS / UTILITIES and run NETINFO MANAGER. In NETINFO MANAGER go to “Security” and then “Authenticate User”. Once Authenticated then go back to “Security” and “Enable Root User” it will prompt you to enter a secure password, once that is done move on.

Now unzip Hamachi and it will produce some obscure folder. For me it produced “hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-osx” for simplicity I renamed it “HAMACHI-FILES”, so should you for this tutorial.

Next, open up TERMINAL under APPLICATIONS / UTILITIES. If you never used terminal then don’t worry. Just enter my commands explicitly. I’m going to assume the “HAMACHI-FILES” folder is on your desktop. For this tutorial let’s pretend your name George and your computer is ADMIN-GMORRIS

When I open TERMINAL I should get

admin-gmorris: ~ george$

Now navigate up to the HAMACHI-FILES folder on your desktop. Start entering the following lines

admin-gmorris ~ george$ cd desktop/hamachi-files
admin-gmorris ~ /desktop/hamachi-files george$ sudo ./install
admin-gmorris ~ /desktop/hamachi-files george$ hamachi-init
admin-gmorris ~ /desktop/hamachi-files george$ hamachi start

Now Hamachi should start running. Most failures will happen at this point. At least for me I was hung up here with TUN/TAP issues. If Hamachi started for you, awesome keep going.

Now create your network on Hamachi. This is very similar to an networked workgroup or domain. Let’s call your network (make up your own name) georgetunes.

admin-gmorris ~ /desktop/hamachi-files george$ hamachi create georgetunes

It will then ask for a password, so give it one, and your hamachi network will be created. At this point you should run this phase of the process again on your other Mac. Once you do that then try to join the other Mac to your Hamachi network using the following commands while on the other Mac (again, assuming your name is George and your other Mac is HOME-GMORRIS). I’m also assuming that you just finished the install of Hamachi on the second Mac.

home-gmorris ~ /desktop/hamachi-files george$ hamachi login
home-gmorris ~ /desktop/hamachi-files george$ hamachi join georgetunes

It will prompt you for your password and then you should be connected. To prove the connection enter this.

home-gmorris ~ /desktop/hamachi-files george$ hamachi list

And you should see the other system in your Hamachi list.

To make this a bit easier, Install Hamachi X on both Macs. If you have already connected to your Hamachi network in Terminal then when you run Hamachi X you should see your network and which systems are online.

Share the Music Love
Open iTunes on both Macs and then share your music. Go into iTunes Preferences, then under General enter your Share Name. Once done then go to the Sharing icon and then make sure the “Look for shared libraries” is checked, also place a check in “Share my library on my local network”.

Here is where the Intel Mac and PPC Mac differed. For the Intel Mac I just needed to reboot iTunes and I could then see the shared music from my other Mac. On the PPC Mac I needed to install and run Rendezvous Proxy.

This should get you started, I’ll add and revise this as the comments come in.

Recently I was just introduced to single use credit cards, apparently they’ve been around for sometime but they are new to me. A single use credit card can be used for online purchases where you are unsure as to the integrity of the website. Rather then repeating the information on these sites I’ll just send you over.

Citibank Virtual Account
http://www.citibank.com/us/cards/tour/cb/shp_van.htm

MBNA ShopSafe
https://www.mbnanetaccess.com

Our client, MetroDenver Economic Development Corporation recently assembled an excellent video showcasing the strength of Colorado’s aerospace industry.