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Having been a huge fan of Movable Type personal publishing platform for so many years, I was thrilled to learn that MT founders had inspired and empowered an Open Source software called Open Melody. Now there's a group of web developers joining forces to collectively foster the evolution of a better content management system.

To test the software I installed a sandbox on www.macumbabeach.com, connected my web server to the Github (for social coding), joined the mailing list and community, I'm set-up to add my contributions to this great work in progress, while simultaneously developing a "Rio de Janeiro Travel Blog" called Macumba Beach.

About Melody;
Melody is an open source content management and publishing system derived from the popular blogging tool Movable Type. Melody is for those who find value in belonging to, supporting and contributing to a community of helpful, passionate and devoted users, but it is also for people who want a secure, proven and high quality publishing environment for their personal web site or their business.

PROJECT GOALS

Melody is actively maintained by a community of passionate individuals committed to the following goals:

• Make personal publishing easier and more enjoyable.


• Create the most progressive and innovative personal publishing application available.


• Inspire a thriving community of users, developers and contributors.

The first website I ever wrote HTML for and also the first company I ever incorporated was www.offshorenet.com , first in Florida and then later in Bahamas. Owning and operating OffshoreNet was an incredible experience that led me to my first web development client, Bahama Out Islands and then several other groups in Nassau, Bahamas. The objective of the company, in the beginning, was to provide Internet marketing and development services, to the many companies providing financial and banking products to Americans from the Caribbean. It was because of OffshoreNet that I found myself in the online gaming (i-Gaming) industry, before most people ever even knew there was such a thing but kept the website and the Marlin icon.

The hard lesson that I learned early-on, back in 1996, was that having a company named OffshoreNet was not an advantageous thing, especially when flying in and out of tax-haven countries. Even though I would explain that I'm a web developer, generally a border agent for the U.S. Government or any other country, working long bizarre shifts with other angry people, would find it very hard to believe that I was not hiding money offshore, so my business card did nothing but cause me problems. So I dissolved the companies and moved on to other projects.

More recently the website www.offshorenet.com has become a news portal for all things related to offshore banking and offshore business, including my personal favorite topic the i-Gaming industry. Over the years I've amassed quite a rolodex of offshore business professionals, many of whom specialize in i-Gaming, so I like the concept of a Network just for the purpose of connecting people who need to get things done for a business in a new global paradigm. It's never been about evading tax, cheating people, or hiding money, but rather; about conducting global business in a more competitive manner with less hurdles, headaches, legal liabilities and operating expense.

I can still remember the day I registered WinningStreak.com back in 1995, I was living in South Florida at the time and there was an article in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel about a new proposed gambling ship to be docked at the famous Bahia Mar, the article went on to say that the name of the boat was the "Winning Streak". At that time I was involved in developing one of the first on-line Sportsbooks and we had just installed an on-line Casino on a server system in Curacao but late at night, about 2:30am in the morning, I awoke and wondered if the Domain name was available, sprang out of bed and logged on to the Internet to find out. Imagine that? Winning Streak was available, so I registered it. The gaming ship project sank.

Ever since the day I registered this Domain I've been dreaming of developing a true "Live" Casino that integrated my 2 favorite things, beaches and casinos. Just like the old IBM commercial "where are the flying cars? we were supposed to already have flying cars...." I feel the same way about the convergence of media and online gambling, it's just not completely there yet, at least not the way I envision it, which is to create a virtual reality integrated with real reality. My day will come... meanwhile, checkout CasinoBeach.com

An interesting name for a story, as it compels the reader to read more and begs the question; end of what? I wish it were the end of the war or anything more than just the end of August, alas there's more; I've reached the end of my silence not the end of reason and decided to commence publishing articles again. Back in June when I stopped writing for the Silicon Palms Blog I made a decision that I'd wait until I found some clarity about my business before I started publishing again. See, I was conflicted by the blur of the lines between my life and my career and what was the meaning of either.

Now that it's a blue moon I've run out of excuses for not writing more often, especially since both business and personal life have been very exciting and rewarding. It's now time to step-up my efforts towards gaining more momentum.

If you were waiting for the opportune moment ....
that was it.
Captain Jack Sparrow
"Pirates of the Caribbean"

Davos Switzerland is famous for ground breaking advancements in social programs. Each year technology has become more and more center stage at the schmooze fest for global titans, although this year Iraq was also high on the agenda.

Last night I watched a special on CNN live from Davos, hosted by Becky Anderson, called "Our Networked World" with a live audience who each had a wireless device to provide polling to questions asked during the discussion. The panel was a good mix of industry experts and the topic was Web 2.0.

Rumor has it that Ladbrokes of London are in discussion to purchase 888.com for about the same number of millions of dollars (888). How fitting that the largest global gaming company buys the largest online casino, just as I predicted they would do, after they divested themselves of the U.S. Hilton Hotel franchise.