I'm positively giddy this morning. And I think the rest of San Francisco is too. When I first moved back to the Bay Area in 2002, you couldn't imagine a more depressing place. The great steel and glass canyon that is Market Street was practically silenced as post-bubble workers shuffled sadly to the jobs they clung to desparately. But there's a new sound on the streets these days - the sound of corporate credit cards flying out of wallets to buy nice lunches! The bubble is back! And it's fueled by widgets.

Hopefully it's not a real bubble, but there is a lot of enthusiasm in technology again. And I'm glad I don't have to feel like working with tech is a dirty profession anymore.

So what's this widget talk all about? "Widget" is that word you use for a thing when you

Craig Newmark takes up the Net Neutrality issue in this second installment of the series from NPR. It's really very interesting for me to hear Craig (who I think can safely be assumed to fall on the "progressive" side of the political scale) highlight Net Neutrality as an opportunity for LESS government oversight, while the

So I finally followed Google to the dark side and downloaded Google desktop, then set up a customized Google start page for my browser. I'll save the Google Desktop story for another day.

I was totally enchanted by the Google personalized start page because of the sheer number of widgets and applications that you can add. The one I love best - a widget that allows you to send text messages to cell phones, right from your browser, for free. Replies come back to an email account that you specify. So far, no indication that you can do bulk messaging, but a nifty little app indeed.

You can download the app and use it without Google desktop. Mac users a especially in luck because it will interface with the Mac address book. No need to

You may have seen Katrin's earlier post about the N-TEN summer tour. We've got some updated schedule information here.

In order to meet each other, we'll be hosting informal get-togethers across the country as part of the first N-TEN Summer Tour. I am very much looking forward to meeting you, to reconnecting with many of you, to learn more about you, and to hear from you how we can serve you best. The first round of beer is on us!

Don't worry. We'll send you lots of announcements about meet-ups in your city but here is the schedule so far:

• Week of June 12th: Washington