Mike Brown statement

“The past 5 years have been an exceptional experience. I have been very fortunate to lead a group of men who I respect and thoroughly enjoyed coaching on a daily basis. At the same time, I was able to work alongside a terrific coaching staff and with Danny Ferry and a basketball operations team, all of whom I have a profound respect for.

We partnered in creating a culture and a standard that I am, and will continue to be, very proud of. None of which would be possible without the dedication and support of Dan Gilbert. I am thankful for the opportunity that he gave to me and my family.

We have a deep appreciation for Northeast Ohio, the Cleveland Cavaliers organization, and the people in this community, and have enjoyed making this our home." - Mike Brown

Class (and smart) act. He will be head coach somewhere else very soon.

Albert Ratner - What Cleveland needs to do

Forest City co-chairman Albert Ratner was the keynote speaker at the Cleveland International Hall of Fame inductions. He was very clear on what steps Cleveland needs to take in order to survive.

Watch the video highlights of Al Ratner's keynote.

Cavs Coach Mike Brown fired

It was inevitable

CLEVELAND – The Cleveland Cavaliers have announced that Mike Brown has been relieved of his duties as head coach, Cavaliers General Manager Danny Ferry announced today from Cleveland Clinic Courts.
“I have truly enjoyed working with Mike Brown. Mike has played a huge role in turning around the Cavs organization,” Ferry said. “Over the past five years, Mike established a work ethic, defensive identity and culture of winning that was not here previously.”
Brown was hired as the 17th coach in franchise history on June 2, 2005. In five seasons with the Cavs, he compiled a record of 272-138 (.663). Brown was named the 2009 NBA Coach of the Year by members of the media.
“Mike Brown is a class act. On behalf of the entire Cavaliers organization, there is only gratitude and appreciation for Mike's accomplishments over the past five years," stated Cavaliers Majority Owner Dan Gilbert. "I think it is clear that Mike Brown has been instrumental in contributing to the growth and progress we have experienced in recent years. We wish Mike and his family the best of luck in any future challenges that Mike chooses to accept going forward.”
“After a long and deep analysis of all of the factors that led to the disappointing early ends to our playoff runs over the past two seasons, we concluded that it was time for the Cavaliers to move in a different direction," Gilbert added. "The expectations of this organization are very high and, although change always carries an element of risk, there are times when that risk must be taken in an attempt to break through to new, higher levels of accomplishment. This is one of those times.”
Brown compiled a postseason record with the Cavs of 42-29 (.592). He led the team to at least the second round of the postseason in each of his five seasons, including Cleveland’s first trip to the NBA Finals in 2007.

Howard Rheingold at CWRU Collabtech

Howard Rheingold coined the phrase "Virtual Communities" in an article he wrote in 1987 - way before Facebook or MySpace were even dreamed about.

He is now using social media techniques in education with his Social Media Classroom project at Berkeley and Stanford.

For those of us who have been around for awhile, it was good to hear Rheingold pay respect to the Cleveland Freenet. And also to say that the concept of Digital Natives - where young people know all the tech by osmosis - is a myth.

Hear his thoughts on digital natives and social media from a keynote at CWRU's Collabtech Summit 2010.

I love Cleveland in the springtime

I love Cleveland in the springtime - Watch this great video clip from last night's Cleveland International Hall of Fame inductions. Imagine the 300+ people singing along with Hall of Fame inductee Paramjit Singh.

More photos and videoes from the Cleveland International Hall of Fame coming soon

Cleveland International Hall of Fame

We are pysched for the Cleveland International Hall of Fame inductions tonight. The event is Sold Out with 300 people attending with almost 200 more on waiting list.

That's a tribute to both the quality of the inductees and a testament to how ripe Cleveland is for international growth and welcoming.

Details on the Cleveland International Hall of Fame.

There will be a lot of videos and photos posted at ClevelandPeople.Com after the event in the next week or so.

Crazy little cars

I was at both Polish Constitution Day parades last Sunday (Parma and Slavic Village) and one of the most interesting units was the mini cars. As I watched, I wondered what possessed these guys to get into such a hobby.

I have to admit, it looks like a lot of fun.

eBooks, Audio Books, DRM and more

Steve Potash has been working in the eBook space since the mid-1980's. Now OverDrive is one of the world's most important companies in the world of eBooks, audio books and more.

In this podcast/vidcast with Steve Potash, Steve brings us up to date about OverDrive, Digital Rights Management (DRM) and talks about how the Amazon Kindle (and then smartphones, the iPad, etc) have changed things.

And there's something cool in the OverDrive offices that catches the Geek's attention. Onward to Encodia!

Cozad-Bates House

I drive by it (twice!) almost every day but never stopped to read the marker.

The Cozad-Bates House is really a historical site that needs to be preserved.

Read about the Cozad-Bates House.

Windows Home Server

I am a big fan of Windows Home Server. It makes so much sense for homes and for small offices. There is now a public beta for Wiondows Home Server V 2 which has been called by the code name Vail. This YouTube video gives the basics:

Chemistry add-in for Word

There is a new (beta) add in for Microsoft Word that will interest those who use chemical info in their documents.

The Chemistry Add-in for Word makes it easier for students, chemists, and researchers to insert and modify chemical information, such as labels, formulas and 2-D depictions, from within Microsoft Office Word.

In addition to authoring functionality, Chem4Word enables user denotation of inline “chemical zones,” the rendering of high-quality and print-ready visual depictions of chemical structures, and the ability to store and expose semantic-rich chemical information in a semantically rich manner.

Details and downlaod link for the free Chemistry Add-in for Word

Turban and Beard = Terrorist?

We all remember the photos of Osama Bin Laden with turban and beard and brown skin after the September 11th attack.

Unfortunately, those photos have been devastating to the Sikh community in the US.

99% of the people wearing turbans in the US are Sikhs from India.

As is often the case, some education goes a long way in dispelling fear and even hatred. A special program on Sikhism at the City Club addressed this.

As you can hear in a short video, the 3 main pillars of Sikhism should be acceptable to almost anyone.

Take a few moments to learn about Sikhs from my posting on the City Club event.

And next time you see someone point to someone with a beard in a turban and call him a terrorist, tell them that they are Sikhs, members of a peaceful faith.

Cleveland Polonia mourns tragedy

“Ohio’s Polish American community joins Polish people around the world in mourning the untimely death of Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski.,” said John Borkowski, president of the Polish American Congress-Ohio Division.

People from many local Polish groups gathered at St John Cantius Church in Tremont this morning.

Pictures and videos from St John Cantius

Are you fan enough for the Fan Cave?

Along with this fun new Fan Cave at Progressive Field, maybe they should come up with a Geek Cave. It could be loaded with Jolt and Mountain Dew and have servers, routers and all kinds of hardware and software to play with - between innings of course.



See more of the Fan Cave.

Go Tribe!

Rock, Paper, Scissors for 20,000 people

Cavaliers fans attending the Friday, April 9th game vs. the Indiana Pacers will be the first in the NBA to experience a new level of fan interaction with the debut of “CrowdWave,”­ a game system designed specifically to allow fans to play together simply by moving their arms.

The CrowdWave game platform is a mass-participation technology that uses the collective movement of a crowd to control the video games that will appear on Q-Tube, Quicken Loans Arena’s video scoreboard.

The Cavaliers CrowdWave launch line-up will include five applications (two games and three polls) including Rock, Paper, Scissors pits one lucky fan against the entire crowd. The crowd votes for rock, paper or scissors by moving their body in a particular direction as the player reveals his or her choice. The quick nature of this game allows for a tournament style multiple rounds over the course of the evening.

More on CrowdWave at the Cleveland Cavs game.

Electronic Shirt

OK, I've heard of wearing your heart on your sleeve but broadcasting the amount of e-mail in your inbox on your shirt? That's what Chris Ball does.

Chris Ball is a free software developer who lives in Boston and works as Lead Software Engineer for One Laptop Per Child. On a recent free day he got some free electronics to mess with and came up with his new shirt. He made a t-shirt that displays how much unread e-mail he has using an Arduino Lilypad and Bluetooth dongle. An Android phone sends the number of unread mails to the shirt.



Of course, until I clean out my in-box, the shirt will be useless to me as I will quickly surpass the 128 message limit.

April Fool's Pranks

What is it about geeks and April Fool’s Day? Manipulating hardware and software for fun and pranks has long been a favorite geek pastime so when society dedicates a whole day to it, what else did you expect?

Some of the old-time pranks will still work, especially with newbies, but are getting boring. I mean how many times can you rename one of those open the CD/DVD drive door files and send to a co-worker? So the drive jumps open. Oh boy.

There are a bunch of pranks for smart phones but since many are device specific, I’ll let you search for them.

I posted 4 easy pranks that you can try on your pals on the 1st.

Just be prepared for revenge – and they may not wait till next April 1st.

Security Quiz

Can you figure out which is the real site and which is the phising site when you see them side-by-side? It's not as easy as you may think.

The site is created by Verisign who wants to sell you high-end certificate services but it does a good job and may open some eyes.

Try the quiz

We're # 43!

Not sure if I should be happy or sad that Cleveland was ranked #43 (out of 50) in the Norton Top 10 Riskiest Online Cities Report.

Is it because we are safe or that we have low access and usage like #50 Detroit?

Seeing as the Top Ten has tech hubs, I think it's not good news to be 43rd.

1. Seattle
2. Boston
3. Washington, D.C.
4. San Francisco
5. Raleigh, N.C.
6. Atlanta
7. Minneapolis
8. Denver
9. Austin, Texas
10. Portland, Ore.

The Great Lakes Geek reports more.

New Nun Shoes?

I don't know why I got a kick out of this but I did.

I was walking across the street for some fried rice for lunch. A nun was crossing the street (Payne) next to me - coming from Dave's.

She was up there in years and wore the traditional habit. Good for her. But then I noticed that instead of the basic black shoes that I remember all sisters wearing, she had on a pair of black Crocs.

Probably a lot more comfortable than the old sensible boats they had to wear but the incongruity of the situation gave me a laugh.