Chaos Magnet

If you can't beat 'em...

I rant about _blank">stupid patents all the time, but mostly because it's very rare that I see a controversial patent that I would consider "non-obvious". Maybe it's because I think about how to do these things all the time, even though I rarely have time to implement any of them. Well, I've finally had it.

I had an idea for a project last year, and it would have been fantastic. I'm not going to tell you what it was, but I can prove it would have been very successful, because I've just found out there's a company doing it, and very successfully. Now, I can deal with that. I didn't do it because I didn't have time.

But they patented it!!! So now, not only am I not the first to do this, I can't even do it at all!!

So that's it. It turns out that while a traditional Utility Patent (meaning just about everything but design patents) is only $380 to file -- more to actually have it issued and so on -- it turns out you can file a Provisional patent application for only $75. Maybe I ought to be doing that with my ideas.

I was an Inventor on 9 patents -- which, by the way, I ALSO thought were obvious, but the company disagreed -- and I remember what a pain it was to put together the application, but by G-d I've had enough!

And we're back!

Yes, yes, I've been gone all summer. Amazing how things can get away from you! So where have we been? Let's just say it's been really busy. What have we been up to?

Well, aside from personal issues, let's see.

My company, Backstop Media, has been outrageously busy. We do tutorials and articles and such for places like IBM developerWorks, and in addition to writing more pieces than I can possibly remember, I've been working with a lot of great writers on some terrific stuff. In fact, I've just finished a really cool series on building a semantic web mashup. I'm particularly proud of part 3. It's an indepth introduction to the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and (I think, at least) it really makes it understandable. (And it's currently featured on the developerWorks home page, woo hoo!)

The hiatus actually started when, after almost 10 years, I finally decided to change hosting companies. There were lots of reasons, but mostly it was the fact that by switching to GoDaddy.com Hosting, I was able to get almost two years of hosting for what I had been paying for a single QUARTER. The process was pretty painless, actually, especially because I already use GoDaddy for my domain name registration. (It's cool, because you get all kinds of freebies. It doesn't have the advanced capabilities that I need, but they even give you free hosting with registration!)

Also, my parents have decided to take the leap and sell their vitamins online, so in addition to setting up an online order page -- if you take vitamins, it's a darn good deal, actually -- I will be setting up some content pages for them eventually.

I was going to set up a site for Star Wars gifts, but I never really got around to it.

What I did get around to, though, was helping Sarah start selling on EBay, and that's been a real riot! We've been going to auctions, and picking up some cool stuff. Sarah's got an eye for dishes, and I've been enjoying oddities. Here's hoping that continues to do well.

In any case, Chaos Magnet is once again up and running. Here's to a great year for all of us!