Look around and let us know what you think! You might find some dead ends, and broken pages but don’t worry we are working hard to finish everything up!

While in theory this is a great idea, the issue with the bill is the methodology and the process by which infringement is defined and enforcement is enacted. In it’s current proposed state the bill gives the US Dept. of Justice & copyright holders the ability to effectively shut down websites that it (or its corporate allies) disagree with.

The act of blocking the domain name of what the bill deems an infringing website will not stop online piracy, it will simply change it, as the content will still be available via other means. This is not true for the thousands of honest businesses and open content sites (think YouTube) that depend on their brand recognition for survival and would subsequently fall under the broad definition of what an infringing site would be.

The result of being mistakenly blocked, even for a short time, to a small business or Internet start-up has the potential to be catastrophic. Not only would access to the site be blocked, but the companies ability to perform even day to day tasks such as billing customers via credit card or Paypal would be stripped, making fighting this type of government action via the legal process simply not an option for many small businesses financially.

The people in congress debating and deciding the fate of this bill do not have the technical knowledge necessary to comprehend its potential unintended consequences and they need to hear from you. You can and should contact your congressional representative regarding this and make your voice heard.

The easiest way to do this is via the following site:

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/pipa_sopa

Previously, Google said it did not create comprehensive profiles across its various properties, including its leading search engine, Android smartphone operating system and YouTube video site.

In a statement, Alma Whitten, a Google privacy director, wrote that the changes “will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.” She added, “Our recently launched personal search feature is a good example of the cool things Google can do when we combine information across products.”

That change, called Google Search Plus Your World, brought criticism from rivals Facebook and Twitter, which said that Google+ content now buries their own pages in Google’s search engine, and from people who do not care to use Google’s new social network.

The new privacy policy, too, has already sparked concerns voiced on social networks, including on Google’s own platform.

“Google consolidating data — gives me some cause for concern,” Robert Mason, a professor of information technology at the University of Washignton, wrote publicly on his Google+ profile.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment, and instead referred CNN to Whitten’s statement and a brief document posted on the company’s website. The latter notes that Google does not sell users’ personal info to other companies, and that people who do not like the changes can close their accounts.

Google uses some of the data it collects based on people’s usage in order to deliver advertisements customized to individuals.

Whitten boasted in her company blog post that the single, shorter privacy policy should appease government regulators who have called for simplifications across the industry. Facebook made a similar claim last year when it removed much of the legal jargon from its privacy agreement.

Google’s new privacy policy will go into effect on March 1. It applies to everyone who is logged into a Google account while searching, checking Gmail, watching YouTube videos or downloading apps to an Android phone.

The company plans to send e-mails to users and post a notification on its home page about the changes, Whitten wrote.

Shareholders of RIM should be rejoicing. The future certainly appears to belong to mobile, and who to better represent the future of handset technology? Well, just about anyone else in the space. In a market space that is growing by leaps and bounds, RIM management has not been able to execute. By some estimates, smart phone sales are up over 70% year-over-year. Sales of smart phones continue to be selected over non-smart phones at the highest rate yet. What more could the management of RIM ask for? This is quite possibly the best market environment RIM will ever find itself going forward.

Why are RIM shareholders not making money hand-over-fist? Simple, in a word, “Google” (GOOG) is eating their lunch at every turn. Google has taken what they learned about free online applications and software, and applied it brilliantly in the mobile space. What better way to get developers behind your product and create demand for your product than to give it away for free? Google’s foresight in marketing has instantly created the critical mass needed to make the Andriod platform a key player. To be sure, Andriod came at a development cost to Google that is not being recovered directly, but with a market share of over 40% of the operating systems and growing, Google is able to steer the direction of the mobile space overall, and continue its dominance in the online advertising world.

RIM management may say to shareholders, “we are trying to compete against a free product”, but why should shareholders care when the value of RIM continues to slide down into the dark cavity of lost valuation? Can moving over to the QNX platform really be a great idea for smart phones when the PlayBook has failed to draw a significant amount of interest away from Apples’s (APPL) iPad? Without a critical mass of users or expected users, developers will not focus their energy and resources towards the QNX. In addition, without the supporting applications, it will be challenging for RIM to gain market share. A merry-go-round of market share hell like this for RIM may quickly turn RIM into another PALM or Motorola (MMI), with an end for the company that values the intellectual property more than anything else. While current investors of Motorola may be happy today, I believe investors of RIM are looking for more out of management.

I believe it is unlikely that Google will hang on to the hardware side of Motorola for very long. Look for one of many Andriod based hardware makers to buy out Google’s stake in the hardware. Once the hardware portion of Motorola has been sold off, any small worries that hardware makers have will dissipate quickly.

Sprint (S) can see the handwriting on the wall. In an article written a few days ago (click here to read), I describe how RIM’s PlayBook is currently left out in the cold. Yes, the PlayBook does have WiFi, regardless, it would appear RIM needs to create products that exceed others like the iPad.

While RIM has been a stock I believe should be shorted (click here to read why), and I shorted into the close yesterday after the monster run up in share price, it doesn’t have to stay a short. The company has everything it needs to pull out of the current tail spin. Everything except maybe one, the management. Recently, a shareholder proposal was introduced to divide up the management of RIM. It was a great idea brought forward by insightful shareholders. A company that thought releasing the current PlayBook against the iPad appears to need a shakeup of management. unfortunately, in an agreement that must make Congress envious, the idea was put on hold while a committee of directors “studied” the idea. Allow me to save the directors the time and trouble, and provide a copy of the stock chart along with the current and projected market share numbers. If that is not enough, I am at a loss for what will be enough to get the leadership to act decisively. It is the same line of thinking that is allowing changes to be put to a study club of directors, which has allowed RIM to lose the aggressiveness needed to compete with Apple and Google. Does it really take a study club to figure out that instead of laying off workers, maybe the layoffs need to be further up the pay scale?

I want to invest in RIM, and who wouldn’t with the current balance sheet and discount in share price? While the numbers look attractive, I know the reason for the very low PE multiple is the lack of faith the market in the captains of RIMM. If the study club does more than compare expense accounts, they will shake up RIM’s top and the market will start putting some value into RIM’s future. The sooner the better, and the sooner I will become an investor.

This was saddening news for Apple lovers around the world, but more importantly his family. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers as they navigate their way through this loss.

Apple posted the following condolences after the public announcement of his passing. If you would like to share your thoughts, memories, and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.com

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

Check out our new Facebook page and make sure to “like us”. We will be posting project updates and all kinds of fun things on here so stay tuned!

Click Here to visit our new Facebook page!

After many years of running Epicio from top-secret, undisclosed remote locations, we decided to finally bite the bullet and get ourselves our own office space! It took us a few months of looking around, but we’ve set up shop on the top floor of an old building in beautiful downtown Milford, MA. Our office sits perched upon the top floor of the same building that houses 89 Trattoria, a local Milford restaurant/bar/landmark. The easiest way to get to our “penthouse” space is via the main street entrance, which leads to a not-so-quick elevator ride up to the third floor. We have plenty of space for now, beautiful 100 year old granite outer walls, plenty of big windows for sunshine, and 10 foot ceilings that really fit the aesthetic we were looking for. But I know what you’re thinking: “This all sounds great, but do you really need the overhead that comes along with having an office?”. Stay tuned, we’ll be posting more about this soon enough!

After many years of running Epicio from top-secret, undisclosed remote locations, we decided to finally bite the bullet and get ourselves our own office space! It took us a few months of looking around, but we’ve set up shop on the top floor of an old building in beautiful downtown Milford, MA. Our office sits perched upon the top floor of the same building that houses 89 Trattoria, a local Milford restaurant/bar/landmark. The easiest way to get to our “penthouse” space is via the main street entrance, which leads to a not-so-quick elevator ride up to the third floor. We have plenty of space, beautiful 100 year old brick walls, and 12 foot ceilings that really fit the aesthetic we were looking for. But I know what you’re thinking: “This all sounds great, but do you really need the overhead that comes along with having an office?”. We hear you, dear reader. We’ll try to make sense of it as the story unfolds.

In the beginning…

When we first formed EP, we both felt lucky to be able to work for ourselves from the comfort of our own homes. After years of working for “the man” and sitting in some of the nation’s worst traffic, it felt great to roll out of bed and get to work without all the rigamarole. Early on, the only things we needed to run EP smoothly were our phones, computers and caffeine. We were living the dream! No commute, no pointless conversations with that guy from Accounting that always talked sports in the elevator, no germ infestations from the people at work whose kid’s brought home the swine flu—none of that. Since most of our clients were in other states, it didn’t matter that we didn’t have an actual office. We could be just as productive as other firms with occasional visits to each other’s homes and screen-sharing via iChat. Things were great. Or so they seemed.

Oh my goodness, I have found a new love. Today I stopped and watched a few dozen that have been approved by Google thus far, and only found one to be lame. You have to check these out, there will be more to come but then ones posted so far are pretty good.

You can get to the Slam’s by visiting www.demoslam.com

On July 25, 2008, Google software engineers Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj announced that Google Search had discovered one trillion unique URLs.

We began to wade through all the different ideas of how we could rebrand our company to better align with our line of services. On July 25, 2008, Google software engineers Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj announced that Google Search had discovered one trillion unique URLs. So there a few websites out there, and we want to try to stand our among them all. A long time ago, in a far away galaxy…… ok ok, not that long ago when we started Epicio we didn’t have a clear vision of the services we offered. Over time we began to realize we really wanted to make our stake in the web design, and cloud hosting market. The old site still catered to the fact that we offered IT support, and a variety of other things that weren’t really where our focus was. We do still offer those services to clients who contract with us for branding and identity strategy, but we don’t do those services independent of that.

As I stood in front of the whiteboard and began to wireframe a simple creative UI, the word that kept coming to mind was simplicity. I wanted to limit the busyness of the site and keep a clear concise framework for simple navigation. We limited the amount of horizontal menu items on the top and elected to put very few links at the bottom of the page. The other thing that we felt was important to us was showing you more about the people behind the scenes. The about page tells you a little about us, and our new blog lets you get a real in depth look at what we are thinking about and find interesting out there. In the end we feel like the end result was a website that better defines who we are as a business and tells you more about who we are as individuals.

Before we wrap up this post there is one other subject I wanted to touch on. We will write a separate post dedicated to this, but for now we wanted to give a brief explanation on a largely talked about subject that we get a lot which is, “What does Epicio mean?”. First let us start with the phonetics of the word, it is pronounced e-pee-see-o. There is no dictionary definition as we made up the word, so we have the liberty to take literary rights as to how we define it. So for all you know we might just define Epicio as being the coolest web design company ever, you’ll just have to wait and see. I don’t know exactly what made this word come to my mind but I couldn’t get it out so I knew it was meant to be. Epicio is more like an attitude, it is being dedicated to providing the utmost level of integrity and hard work in all that we do.

So there you go. This is the new site, look around, see what you can find and please tell us what you think!

PS. If you look at the site during different times of the day you’ll see different themes showing, little easter eggs, where’s waldo, and much more. We hope you find this new style as fun as we do!