Just today I saw Microsoft’s new browser plugin silverlight. Silverlight is something like a flash/swf format by microsoft. So, what is Silverlight all about and why is the industry praising Microsoft for it? Eweek says it is more than a flash and If you goole a little bit for more articles, you will see things like this sentence on zdnet: “but lets not make it a religious war”, as this is what also comes into my mind when I hear microsoft.

A conclusion for me at the moment is that silverlight is an interesting alternative to flash and its dominant position on the market (98% officially). I especially enjoy the video features of silverlight. The streaming capabilities (can you say HD DRM video) and resulting costs on server side should be better. Will silverlight be the alternative for the combination of flash, flex and Adobe’s new apollo… I don’t know. In my opinion it is an alternative for flash and is the best thing for customers to happen at the moment, as there might be two big wide spread players/plugins and not only one, so prices will go down. The main benefit flash has going for it is the install base figures. Also flash works in almost all browsers, even linux. Microsoft is Mac and Windows ready so this should be a really good competition. I have not jumped into development with silverlight yet but I defiantly will be in the next few days.

Times are changing quickly. As a business we have moved into a new data center facility. This new facility should work out well for us. We were forced to leave our existing facility “RCN Business Solutions” because they are tyrants. There was a three day long period when no one slept or stopped for a break, it was a very exhausting move. We did lose some clients during the transition which is sad but we just have to show our current clients the best service possible and referrals will come in.

So what are some of these new ventures?

I have a friend who runs a website myspacesupport.com and a few other great businesses. Recently his programming staff fled the country on him. Yes sounds funny but that put him in a bad spot. Many things were not finished and left uncompleted. He has many great idea’s and concepts. I proposed to continue the work which needs to be done for him. He has been a great help to me learning about the marketing aspects of internet based businesses. I thought I knew all there was to know about the internet, but that was silly of me. I will never know all there is to know. My first services based site which is not hosting is notmyvideo.com which has been a fun experience thus far. If you are into music videos then be sure to check that out.

Diet Day 1

Another new venture for me is a diet program. I started a popular food service program. I get three meals a day / 7 days a week for about $135 USD, not a bad price for food in downtown Chicago. I have taken some pictures today of my first day, however my wife would like me to take new pictures with some clothes on. I took the famous underwear “before and after” pictures. I will post some pictures in shorts or something later.

Last but not least……Do you ever find your self at work or at school and some of your favorite sites are blocked by “big brother”. I have launched a site which will let you get past those filter system. Go to sneakage.com or worksecret.com and enter the website address you would like to visit. After you hit the surf button you will find out that you have just bypassed your work or school filter. Yay!