Northwest Passages by Steve Murch

Rumor: MSFT to acquire Powerset?

GigaOm is reporting that MSFT is going to acquire Powerset.

If so, that's one-down on my shopping spree list.  Next step:  Facebook?

Get Unstuck for Dinner: get your Recipe of the Day on your Google Homepage, Vista Sidebar, blog, or MySpace page

We've created a Recipe of the Day widget, which is free to add to any website. 

Thanks to Widgetbox.com, it takes just a couple of mouseclicks to add a Recipe of the Day to popular sites like MySpace, TypePad, Blogger, NetVibes, Google's homepage, and more.   (See the recipe of the day in the lower right corner of this blog at current writing.)

Get it, and customize it further, it by clicking on the image below:

If you use Windows Vista, you can get the free Recipe of the Day Sidebar Gadget in the Windows Live Gallery.

 

Happy cooking!

Sears Is Officially Too Incompetent To Even Take Your Money

Gregg wants us to know that Sears has just hung up on one of the last people in America who hasn't totally given up on them. He's spent quite a lot of time lately trying to give them $1500 for a lawn tractor, but they just couldn't figure out how to complete the transaction.

read more | digg story

BigOven adds Video Search

Today we released an improvement to the general search interface for BigOven.  Now, when you search on, say, "Japanese" on BigOven.com, you'll find a set of search results that includes any relevant cooking videos, followed by the recipes themselves. 

At this writing, there are only about 120 cooking videos total, but with new support for YouTube quick-upload, this should increase steadily.

Shift Happens: The Effects of Globalization

Created by Karl Fisch and modified by Scott McLeod; Globalization and the Information Age

Glassdoor is Open for Business

Glassdoor.com, founded by my good friend Bob Hohman, is now open for business. 

Bob describes it as the "TripAdvisor for Business".  It has an opportunity to amass a treasure-trove of data, from salary information to "would you work here" information.  Such data is extremely valuable for job-seekers, job-swappers, HR managers, PR managers, journalists and analysts.  (For instance, I was considering bottom-fishing and investing in Washington Mutual, but a quick read of WaMu anonymous employee feedback on Glassdoor is causing me to think twice.)

It's "free" to get access to the data, but you must contribute your own currency by writing a detailed review.  These reviews are apparently screened by a team at Glassdoor, which could lead to scaling and authenticity-assurance problems, but it's probably manageable given the amount of info they are likely to accumulate.  Check it out at Glassdoor.com.