As someone who has done a considerable amount of typing in his lifetime, I’ve become a bit of a keyboard connoisseur. My first computer was one of the original IBM PCs and one of the great things about that computer was the keyboard. It was this heavy, steel beast of a thing. The keys were well spaced and had the perfect amount of tactile feedback and travel. Maybe it was because I learned to type on that keyboard, but I haven’t found a better keyboard since.

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting a couple talks at the University of Edinburgh. I was invited over by Michael Clouser of the Edinburgh-Stanford Link program. My talks were on starting an Internet company in the 21st century and on utilizing blogs and wikis for business. I had a great time and met a lot of great people. While there, I was invited to a formal dinner for entrepreneurs at the Edinburgh castle.

I’ve been lax on the self-pimpage lately. I’ll be giving two talks this fall in Europe: I’ll be back at the Emerce e.day conference in Rotterdam on September 13th. My talk is described thusly: Mark will talk about the process of starting an Internet company in the 21st century. Small, cheap, and fast is the name of the game. Hear practical advice about what to do and what not to do.

Hypothesis: The inter-team communication requirements when doing distributed software development force better communication habits upon everyone, which can lead to an overall better development process. Explanation: When a group is working together in an office, a majority of communication happens verbally and generally informally (ie. talking in the halls or in meetings). These communications are generally not recorded and archived. Knowledge is lost and/or spread unevenly among the group. With a modern distributed development group, the majority of communication is forced to be text, through email, IM, chat rooms and wikis.

It turns out that the rumors are true, Google has acquired Feedburner. Sounds like a great outcome for all involved. Congrats to the guys at Feedburner, they worked hard and created a great company. They’re good people.