If I ever end up with Cingular, then I’ll need to find this again: Motorola V600, Wireless Internet, Bluetooth And The Macintosh.

I have a new Motorola V600 cellphone and I got it setup with all the Wireless Internet fun you could hope for from Cingular Wireless, including getting it to talk to my Mac PowerBook via Bluetooth. It was quite a struggle, let me tell you. I’m going to document the salient points here so maybe others can learn something. If you’re a Windows or Linux user, it doesn’t mean there isn’t good stuff here, it just means not all of it will be applicable.

[via Unofficial Apple Weblog]

Sports fans like to talk about the appreciation of the team value, the fun of owning a sports team, and the ability of rich owners to absorb monetary loss for the good of the team. And while that may all be true, the bottom line is all about the cash flow. Anyone who has stretched their finances to buy a house understands that it doesn’t matter how rapidly your house appreciates if you can’t make the mortgage payment.

The really rich [at least those who plan on staying really rich] understand that the secret to being rich is having your money work for you, not you working for your money. That means that you’ve got just enough cash flow to finance your lifestyle and the rest of your assets are working to make you richer. And most importantly, it means that you don’t just sell assets to meet cash flow.

Even billionaires care about $10 million losses. That loss means that they may have to cut back on their lavish lifestyle, tap into cash reserves, borrow money, or sell assets. As a one time loss, it’s not a big deal. But as a recurring annual loss, it’s a huge red flag. The owner of a major league sports team doesn’t need to make money. But the owner does need to avoid losing it.

We just upgraded to Tivo Plus. If it had been up to me, then I would have let the free trial lapse and stuck with Tivo Basic. But my partner asserted that there was finally something that she could program to watch her shows and she wasn’t going to let it go away. And how could I argue with that?

Based on a sample size of one, I think that Tivo should get out of the hardware business and into the service business. In the long run, the only people who will make money selling PVR hardware are major consumer electronics companies. They’ve got the sales channels, the economies of scale and the deep pockets. Because Tivo was first, they had to sell hardware. But the value of Tivo is in the user experience not the hardware. The sooner they bite the bullet and write off hardware, the better off they’ll be.

It’s easy to think that Lance is now the greatest cyclist of all time. After all, he’s the only six time winner of the Tour de France. Easy to think and wrong. Eddy “the Cannibal” Merckx remains the greatest cyclist of all time.

Lance took the Tour de France and made it his personal obsession. He made the month long Tour a year long endeavor, relegating the remaining eleven months to training. He is the greatest champion of the Tour de France.

But Merckx won everything. At any course and over any distance, the Cannibal devoured his competition in quest of victory. In 1972 he had the second greatest hour in sports; setting the one hour cycling record, and collecting the 10km and 20km records along the way.

The greatest hour in sports? The 45 minute stretch in 1935 when Jessie Owens set three world records and tied a fourth.

Lance Armstrong wins his 6th Tour de France, passing five time champions Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. Last year he showed signs of weakness, winning by only 61 seconds. And this year, I expected that he would be pushed to the limit.

Not even close. Lance took control when the Tour entered the mountains. And once he showed his form, the end result was never in doubt. Anything can happen in the Tour. But on the road, where Lance controlled his own destiny, there were no challengers.

Eric McErlain is taking a break and leaving the Off Wing Opinion in the capable hands of Jeff Cooper, Skip Oliva, Michael McCann, Jim McCarthy, Joe Tasca, and Ben Wright. And as much as I’d like to have Eric back at the keyboard, I’ll be sad to see these guys go. They’ve brought in new energy and brightened the place up.

Jeff, Joe and Ben have their own blogs to tend. But maybe we can persuade Skip, Michael and Jim to keep going when Eric takes back the keyboard.

With today’s TDF stage victory, Lance is firmly in the driver’s seat in route to a unprecedented 6th TDF victory. With just 5 days to go, it’s going to take a major collapse to lose the yellow jersey.

Last year, I thought that I saw some Cracks in the Armor. So much for that theory.

My fascination with Moneyball is captured in this exchange:

Blez: And if you think about it in a lot of ways, Moneyball is a “true American story.” It’s about looking for a better way to do something.

ML: Absolutely!!! I completely agree. That innovation is at the center of this culture’s soul and that it’s being done in a game that everyone thought they knew; that makes it a very rich story.

Moneyball: A tribute to analyzing situations and using that insight to zig when everyone else is zagging.

Far too often, the player is bigger than the team. So it’s quite refreshing to see a story featuring The Blue Train, the US Postal bicycle team. Today, the Blue Train put Lance back in yellow.

If you’re interested in Baseball, Moneyball, or Michael Lewis:

He’s the author we have all come to love. He gave a national spotlight and prominence to the team we follow like a religion. He gave us our good book.

And now, Michael Lewis took a break from his newest book to speak to me. He looks forward to the new book, reflects back on the impact of Moneyball and gives a passing thought to the infamous Joe Morgan.

Whether it’s good baseball, scouting, moneyball or luck; the success of small market teams is the story in baseball. And believe in it or not, Moneyball is part of that story.