You’re not the only one watching what you do in Adobe Creative Suite 3, the company’s ubiquitous photo-and-design software package. Adobe is watching you, too. According to this screenshot from Uneasysilence, launching Adobe CS3 triggers communication between your computer and behavioral analytics firm Omniture. (For starters, Adobe could have chosen a partner with a less ominously Foucauldian name.)

Adobe confirms the function, saying they use information gleaned about user behavior to gain “business insight into how to create better user experiences.” Don’t want to be their guinea pig? Omniture lets you opt out.

Source:Valleywag

Yahoo career-advice columnist Penelope Trunk took on a familiar topic today: “How to deal with getting fired (from Yahoo.)” Her boss, she said, told her the column didn’t pull in a high enough CPM — the rate advertisers pay. Stock talk draws pricier ads than job advice. So far, all business. But then came the gratuitous insult: When Trunk asked if there were any other opportunities at Yahoo for her, the Yahoos recommended she try Lifestyles, a Yahoo division for food, horoscopes, and the like.

The scene was all too familiar for Trunk. When Trunk’s column for Business 2.0 was canceled, her editor there suggested that Trunk, then pregnant with her first child, try writing for Working Mother instead.

From a helpful tipster, the first-ever photo from the wedding ceremony of Larry Page and Lucy Southworth. The groom wore a white buttondown shirt, untucked; the bride, a cream strapless number, with her hair loose. Pics or it didn’t happen, eh? After the jump, visual confirmation that Sir Richard Branson was the Google cofounder’s best man.

The coconut telegraph linking Valleywag’s Virgin Islands correspondents with headquarters in San Francisco is down. Our sources who promised us an inside look at Larry Page’s wedding to Lucy Southworth, believed to be taking place right now on Richard Branson’s Necker Island, have been silent since this morning. And now I think I know why: What may be a tropical storm system is forming northeast of the archipelago. After the jump, a shot taken today by a Valleywag informant showing the extremely windy conditions there.

Rough weather has so far served to hinder paparazzi on boats, but that lucky stroke may now be turning against Larry and Lucy. Since the festivities are going late into the evening tonight, the couple and their 600 celebrity guests — rumored to include Bono, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, and as many as three U.S. presidents — may find themselves stuck on Necker, Gilligan’s Island-style. Good thing Page required that their passports be up to date and valid well past the weekend.

Wow, and we thought last week sucked. Googler Larry Page is marrying the Chiclet-toothed Lucy Southworth tomorrow, but no one has posted photos of the lucky couple yet, so as far as we’re concerned, it didn’t happen. The week’s other near-misses that were nonetheless hits:

• TechCrunch honcho Michael Arrington tried to fan some flameage by threatening “war” on Facebook for hiring away one of his techies. His post divided Valley tech workers into two camps: Those who got the joke and found it hilarious, and those who thought Arrington was totally serious and found it hilarious.

• Some girl broke up with her boyfriend on Facebook, then had her Flickr account hacked — or did she?
• Ultravideogenic Natali Del Conte is leaving us for New York City to become CNET’s go-to gal for national TV in January. Just when she’d started hanging out with losers like us! Hurrah for you, Natali, but YOU MAKE BUNNY CRY.

Source:Valleywag

Marcel Laverdet isn’t shy about whose bread he butters. And we’re not shy about saying who spreads it thick on our toast. Thanks go to this week’s sponsors:

Ask.com, Bank of America, Canon, Casio, Current TV, Dawdle, Evolve Speakers, Ford Focus, Helio, HP, Logitech, Mio, Nokia, OQO, Project Kuros, Register.com, SanDisk, Sprint, Toshiba, TiVo, Vista

Got something shiny you want to tell the world about? Advertise on Valleywag.

Source:Valleywag

We’re getting more reports from the scene of this weekend’s wedding between gummy Google cofounder Larry Page and yummy Stanford Ph.D. Lucy Southworth. Above, another picture of the wedding tent (click for a bigger version.) Is that an alt-energy windmill on the hill? How eco-conscious! After the jump, a vacationing tipster sends us more details of the goings-on in the Virgin Islands, including a rundown on rumored Hollywood guests.

We were staying in this little slice of paradise called Virgin Gorda when this wedding extravaganza came upon us. Now we cannot go to Little Dix or Biras Creek, some of our favorite spots.

First let me tell you that the whole island is NOT booked for the wedding. Only Little Dix Bay, Biras Creek, the Bitter End yacht club and some private villas.

We haven’t seen any big activity happening yet. Other than the at least 25 big containers shipped to the island with decorations, furniture and who knows what else. It is hard to believe that there will be 600 guests. Necker Island is pretty small to accomodate such a big party, and so is Little Dix. But we’ll see.

Rumor is that Clinton, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonny Depp are some of the guests.

Another possible guest? Ex-president Jimmy Carter, Nobel Prize winner and founder of folksy charity Habitat for Humanity.

So, how is Larry and Lucy’s quixotic quest for privacy going? Another friend writes in:

Someone said it perfectly down here, you bring in 600 of your closest friends, bring secret service down to check out the place, bring in anywhere from 15 to 50 containers of “stuff”, book up every hotel room around and then they except someone NOT to notice it and take pictures, as they want to “keep it quiet?” “Keep it quiet” would have been going down to city hall in Timbuktu!

The Internet on the iPhone isn’t some fake, watered-down version of the Web. It’s going to be an iPhone-optimized Internet, which of course amounts to the same thing. Here’s a screenshot of CBS News’s image- and video-free efforts. It’s so incredibly fast and efficient, I might just start using it on my Mac, too.

Source:Valleywag

Pictured, above, is the reception tent for this weekend’s nuptials of recent Stanford Ph.D. Lucy Southworth and her beau, Larry Page, the Google cofounder worth about $20 billion. A curious charter captain in the British Virgin Islands decided to take the boat for a spin around the wedding site — the Richard Branson-owned Necker Island — and took these shots of the preparations. The tent above has apparently been outfitted with air conditioning and security cameras, more clearly pictured in the image below. The captain also noted that it looked like workers were adding sand to the beach and placing fake plastic palm trees along a sandbar to give it that authentic tropical look, I guess. What happened to Larry and Lucy’s eco-friendly bash? More pictures after the jump.

A closeup of the tent. Are those security cameras we see?

The trees below are plastic, because real trees apparently get washed away from that part of the island. So eco-friendly!

How does the captain know that they’re plastic? By close examination, of course.

A reader reports Sears.com has been down for much of Black Friday, the most overhyped shopping day of the year. They never learn, do they? Last year, Macy’s and Wal-Mart saw outages. The Sears site is currently displaying a “high traffic volume” excuse page. Anyone know what knocked the site offline? Nothing on this year’s Black Friday list of specials strikes me as a must-click.

Source:Valleywag

You thought the prospect ofcorporations invading your Facebook news feed was bad? Our fascination with social networks has spawned a new breed of marketers hoping to sucker us in with social media. Jockey, the undergarments brand, is currently staging an underwear dance party, which asks users to upload a brief clip … um, rather, video shorts … no … make that a filmic demonstration of them dancing in their ‘roos for a chance to win $5,000. Dove’s hosting a “Campaign For Real Beauty,” which offers self-esteem tips to young girls and women. And Pepperidge Farm is trying to get women to connect via cookies with artofthecookie.com, which hired “lifestyle expert” Sally Horchow to provide tips that will help you connect with friends: “Brands are realizing they have to do a lot more than making something that tastes good. Connecting on a personal level with people makes your life better.” That’s just what we need, brands as helpful friends looking out for our wallets.

Source:Valleywag

Wednesday was Michael Wallent’s last day of work at Microsoft. Not because the fast-rising executive, responsible for the latest version of Internet Explorer, quit, or was fired. Nothing of the sort. Rather, on Monday, he’ll begin a course of surgeries that will allow him to return to his job in January as Megan Wallent. Wallent, who came out as transgender earlier this fall, has started blogging about the experience.

On the blog, titled, “M(): From Michael to Megan,” Wallent shares experiences unflinchingly — like the time an employee asked if he planned to wax his arms. Answer: No, because waxing is ineffective. Only laser hair removal does the job. Wallent takes a similarly practical approach to the problem of changing gender in official documents, drawing on his experience as a program manager at Microsoft to map out the critical path through bureaucracy.

But Wallent also takes an introspective turn, quoting Bob Dylan lyrics. If you want to know what it’s like to be transgendered, the words from this song may give you some insight:

I’m living in a foreign country, but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge; someday I’ll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to the time when I was born
“Come in” she says, I’ll give you shelter from the storm

It’s a useful reminder that blogging doesn’t have to be about money or ego or self-indulgence. Sometimes it’s about embarking on a journey, and being generous enough to take your readers with you.

A tipster has leaked us these screen shots of how Marc Andreessen and company plan to integrate Google’s OpenSocial platform into Ning. Make sure you’re sitting down. We’ve got a ninja.

Notice the Flixster app installed on this profile, part of the Ask a Ninja socia network by Ning:

Here’s a DubPages profile with an iLike app installed. Check out the “activity stream,” very similar to Facebook’s news feed:

Source:Valleywag

A source tells us Facebook will launch SocialAds next Tuesday, November 6 at a swanky little event hall called “Loft Eleven.” The event goes “all afternoon,” so until we hear otherwise, we’re presuming it will be a five-hour forced march through the land of social-network ads, starting at noon. The loft features a 360-degree view of lovely Midtown Manhattan, exposed brick walls, smokers’ terrace and “beautifully arched entrances,” according to the proprietors. OMG! Good thing those arched entrances are beautifully arched. ‘Cause just plain “arched”? Lame. OK, so here’s what the place looks like.

Looks cozy, no? Better be. If Facebook intends to keep all of Madison Avenue locked up for the entire afternoon, as I’ve been told, they better bring the key to the liquor cabinet, too.

Loft Eleven is usually rented for wedding receptions and so the same rules apply. Clink! Clink! Clink! Pucker up, Zuck, here comes big daddy Ballmer! Yes, you have to dance the first dance with him!

See, it’s still a 360 view of a New York, cause that building 5 feet from the window? It’s in New York. OK? Shut up; eat your food; buy ads.

Enough with the soft lighting. This one’s for the engineers.

Source:Valleywag

Affairs of the heart are never easy for outsiders to understand. But when they stray into the office, they, alas, become everyone’s business. Which is why we asked, a while back, which Googler had put his marriage at risk over an affair with a coworker. As commenter notelling correctly guessed after we ran a blind item, it’s Omid Kordestani, Google’s top sales executive. Kordestani’s no mere sales guy, however. For one, he’s worth $2.2 billion, thanks to his Google shares. And inside the Googleplex, he’s referred to as the company’s “business founder,” responsible for the fabulously successful money machine that is AdWords. With his stunningly beautiful and intelligent wife, Bita, shown above to the left, Kordestani might seem to have it all. But all was not enough.

Kordestani’s new love, as is widely known within Google, is Gisel Hiscock, a New York-based finance director for the company.

Before you commenters say it, allow me: Yes, her last name is singularly unfortunate. But since Hiscock joined Google in 2003, before its lucrative IPO, it’s unlikely that she’s after Kordestani for his money. One imagines she might be more interested in obtaining a new surname.

But back to business. One tipster describes Hiscock’s role as “sales finance,” a group that now reports to Google’s CFO, not Kordestani. Hiscock, however, has been at Google since 2003, and at one point sales finance reported to Kordestani. It’s not clear when the affair began, but it’s possible that Hiscock was Kordestani’s employee at the time. And Kordestani, given his importance to the company, holds unspoken authority within Google that reaches beyond his direct line of command.

Even then, Google’s published code of conduct is silent on the propriety of romantic relationships between employees, even when there’s a reporting relationship. So it’s possible Kordestani and Hiscock did absolutely nothing against the rules. Except for this part:

One way to consider whether a given action, relationship, gift, etc. constitutes a conflict of interest is to imagine you are at a company meeting. Could you justify your actions in front of your peers?

Imagine if Kordestani were ever called on to explain his relationship with Hiscock? CEO Eric Schmidt, Google’s adulterer supervision, might be all too understanding. But the rest of Google?

Michael Wallent, a general manager at Microsoft, will return to work in January as Megan Wallent. He came out to colleagues as transgender last month, first in person and then by email. Wallent says he encountered nothing but support — mixed, of course, with some awkward curiosity. That’s unremarkable. Microsoft is located in the progressive Pacific Northwest, where one’s less likely to raise an eyebrow at Wallent’s self-discovery and more likely to worry about the politically correct term to describe it. (For the record, “sex change” is considered derogatory by many; the preferred word is “transitioning.”) He’s unlikely to encounter blatant transphobia on the job. He should worry instead about plain old-fashioned sexism. How will Wallent’s developers react when they come to work on January 2 and it hits them: They’re working for a girl?

This is a company that as of late last year counted only 100 women among its top 900 executives — those Wallent’s rank and higher. In becoming Megan, he’ll only improve that ratio by 0.1 percent.

Wallent argues, passionately and convincingly, that it won’t matter. His track record of shipping products — including Internet Explorer and, more recently, the foundations of Microsoft’s Silverlight Web software — are what will count. His reputation as a thoughtful manager, he says, will matter more than his gender.

Wallent believes the stereotype of Microsoft management — the table-pounding, chest-thumping, loudest-voice-wins culture usually caricatured as sweaty, chair-throwing, white-boy-dancing CEO Steve Ballmer — is a thing of the past. What’s prized now is a mellower meritocracy, where the best ideas bubble up to the top through managerial encouragement and support. He says the best compliment he’s gotten from his charges recently is being called “Coach,” one of the most nurturing labels one can put on a man. That praise may become easier when Michael becomes Megan. Goodbye, Coach; hello, Mom.

Wallent hopes that when he comes back to work, “maybe there are some questions, and then we move on and I keep doing the work I’ve been doing for 11 years.” But at 6′2″, Megan Wallent will cut a striking figure.

A question not for Wallent, but for his company: Can a woman, transgendered or otherwise, thrive at Microsoft? Has the culture moved away from its testosterone roots and embraced a way that’s more friendly to women as managers? In a few weeks, Megan Wallent will find out for herself.

(Photo by Channel9)