Clive Thompson has an outstanding article in today’s New York Times called Meet The Life Hackers. He describes the problem that affects so many people today – the complete overload of digital information and interruptions that makes it difficult to get immersed in any project for an extended period of time. Rather than simply describe the problem (which is where so many articles like this end), Thompson frames the issue as one that has been popularly called the need for “continuous partial attention” (coined by Linda Stone in 1997). He then goes on to describe great research by Mary Czerwinski and Eric Horvitz that directly address this issue.

Today must be my day to catch up on “friends blogging.” I was at Microsoft earlier this week for my three times a year “Microsoft Emerging Business Team (EBT) technical advisory meeting (my co-conspirators were Scott Maxwell – Insight, Chris Pacitti – Austin Ventures, and Vladimir Jacimovic – NEA). We had a great (and very fun) meeting. If you are running a startup company that uses any Microsoft technology, you should know about EBT and the other Microsoft programs for early stage companies such as Empower and the Microsoft Partner Programs. In addition, several of the EBT members are now blogging regularly, including Cliff Reeves, Don Dodge, and Sam Ramji.

Peter Rip (Leapfrog Ventures managing director) – who has just started his blog – has yet another warning on “problematic behavior” that is emerging around the Web 2.0 frenzy and is likely to cause plenty of unhappiness. He takes in on from both a VC – but more importantly – entrepreneur point of view. I haven’t seen Peter in a long time, but remember him fondly and expect his blog to be on the must read list if you are interested in what VCs think.

My long time friend Alan Shimel, Chief Strategy Officer at StillSecure, has started a blog. I first met Alan in NY when I was co-chairman of Sage Networks. We had started to acquire web hosting companies in 1997 and Alan’s was one of the first that we talked to. At the time, he and his partners were running a very rapidly growing shared web hosting company. We had our first meeting at a GE office in Manhattan that I was camping in that day – me in my long hair and jeans; Alan is a lime green jacket (looking like he’d rather be wearing jeans). We connected immediately and were able to put together a deal quickly.

I was at a company the other day that I’m considering investing in. They walked me through their v2 web design and we did a detailed review of it. While it’s much improved over v1, there were still plenty of things that could be improved. One of the people in the meeting suggested everyone review the list of Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005. In addition I’d recommend everyone click through the following links and look carefully at the page design.

I got a Verizon BroadBand Access card (formerly known as “EVDO”) 12 days ago. I’ve been on the road non-stop since then. I can’t imagine life without it. As I sit in the Seattle airport waiting for the redeye to Boston, I haven’t had to sign up for Internet, struggle with any weird logins, wander to another part of the terminal to try to get T-mobile, or anything else. It’s flawless – fast – totally effective – and trivial to deal with. I’ve already saved the monthly subscription fee ($60) through not having to pay $10 / night for Internet access in my hotel rooms and I’ve managed to squeeze in some online time at random spots waiting for things (e.g. the 15 minutes I had to wait for a cab at Microsoft today).

Kevin Maney at USA Today was in fine form yesterday with his article titled “Tech People Appear Hyped About Their Industry Again.” It’s worth a read if you are struggling with whether it’s Web 2.0 or Bubble 2.0.

Not surprisingly, Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham have turned their corporate website (Union Square Ventures) into a blog. If you follow the venture capital business, it’s a “must subscribe” site.

Hard Driving is the story of John DeLorean and DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) through the eyes of William Haddad. While it’s a 20 year old book that I found at the Strand Book Store, it was better than most murder / intrigue / terrorist / thriller books of today. And – best of all – it’s non-fiction. As a teenager, my dad had a good friend – Dr. Casey (a pediatrician by day) – who had a hobby of fixing up smashed up sports cars. He went through phases – for a long time he was into Corvettes (we had two of his – a 1975 and a 1978 that I got to drive in high school), then TR-7s, then Porsches. At one point he got into DeLoreans – I still remember the first time I saw one. Teenage boys were always hanging around the Casey’s house – I could never figure out if it was the cars or his three very attractive teenage daughters. Nonetheless, there was plenty of car repair action to be had – day and night.