Inc. Magazine's List of Top 10 Fastest Growing Black Businesses Include Science & Technology Companies

Inc. Magazine has released its top 10 list of the fastest growing black-owned businesses. What jumped out at me was that some of these businesses were science, technology-driven and three were women-owned. Here's the top 10 list of fast growing black businesses:

1. ClearCorrect, led by Jarrett Pumphrey, which makes an alternative to braces.
2. A. Harold & Associates, led by Andy Harold, Jr., and specializes in providing technology, education, engineering and training support services to federal, state and local governments.
3. JMA Solutions, a consulting firm that contracts with the Federal Aviation Administration and was started by Janice Adams.
4. LinkVisum, started by Fatimah Moody, provides management consulting services to government agencies and the private industry.
5. Urban Lending Solutions, started by former NFL pro Charles Sanders, is the biggest black owned business on the list. The company is a real estate firm.
6. Network Solutions Provider is a telecommunications provider started by Phillip Walker.
7. A10 Clinical Solutions is a clinical research firm started by Leah Brown. 
8. The Menkiti Group, a real estate firm, was started by Bo Menkiti, develops, manages and sells mid-market residential and commercial properties.
9. Iris Data Services, started by Major Baisden, supports law firms and corporate legal departments with electronic discovery, computer forensics, document review and media restoration services.
10. SciMetrika, started by Jean Orelien, who was born in Haiti, is a public health consulting firm.

Did you get a "you don't have an INBOX yet" message when you tried to sign into Hotmail?

Apparently something went wrong during routine maintenance over at Microsoft Live (Hotmail), which cause tons of users to receive a message that they don't have an inbox yet.

As you might imagine, this was extremely frustrating to Hotmail users:

"When I signed in as usual tonight I got this message:

'You don't have an inbox...yet

Sign up for Windows Live Hotmail and get a free, customizable inbox with lots of storage and great security.

Note: Whether you use Hotmail or not, you can always go to your contact list.'

BULLSHIT! Yesterday I had thousands of emails going back to 2002, and today I 'don't have an inbox...yet'!!!??? Apparently the idiot assholes 'upgrading' windows live lost or erased the only part of my account that I actually used, liked, or cared about; my hotmail. I'm afraid to follow their prompts to 'sign up' because that might start me over new, eliminating ANY chance I might have of recovering my years of correspondence. Goddamn you microsoft!!! First vista and now this. GRRRR!!!" Source: James' Blog

Understanding how frustrating this must have been for James and other Hotmail users,I did a little digging of my own and was able to find the following update on the Microsoft Live Website:

Temporary outage is over: Your inbox is safe

Some of you may have experienced an unusual message when you tried to sign in to Windows Live earlier this (Thursday) evening (PST), a message that said “You don’t have an inbox…yet.”

Rest assured that your inbox is safe!

The incorrect message was sent out, caused by a networking issue that we encountered while doing routine maintenance.

We have corrected the problem and you should be able to access your Hotmail and other Windows Live services again now. We apologize for any inconvenience that was caused by this issue, and we thank you for using Windows Live.

- The Windows Live team

UPDATE, 11:19 PM PST: Some of you are still reporting problems signing in. Our staff is working on getting the sign-in problem fixed as soon as possible. As stated above, if you are seeing a message that you “don’t have an inbox,” the message is incorrect. Your messages are still intact on our servers, and you will have access to them again as soon as this temporary outage is resolved." Source: Windows Live Web Site

The good news is that Hotmail has assured users that their email is saved on their server. However, I really am beginning to wonder how we ever managed without email, and text messages, and tweets, and cell phones, and...

The next time you get arrested, don't forget to Twitter, playa!

A while back we did a story on Twitter, the latest social networking craze. I must admit that it is easy to become enthralled with perusing the microblogs of people you know as well as complete strangers.

Now it seems that celebrities have also begun to tweet their lives away; From the sublime to clashes with the law:

"Particularly interesting is the trend of instant-update personal journalism - tweeting during, say, plane crashes in Denver or the Hudson River miracle in New York City and even from the scene of the Mumbai terrorist attacks earlier this year. So perhaps it shouldn't be surprising to find that rapper Jim Jones broke out his BlackBerry during a traffic stop to chronicle his arrest on Twitter Monday night in New Jersey.

Jones, no stranger to a view behind bars lately thanks to an alleged scrap with a friend of R&B singer Ne-Yo in New York and possibly being part of an argument that ended in gunfire last month in Detroit, fell victim to the worst of all possible hip hop crimes this time, though - a warrant for an old traffic ticket. The man best known for 'We Fly High (Ballin')' got jacked for his $120 worth of oversight in Teaneck. The rapper posted bail and was scheduled for a Tuesday court hearing on the matter." Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

So I've got to know, do you use Twitter?

By the way, you can click here to follow me on Twitter!

Do you want your doctor Twittering during surgery?

A Chicago-area hospital is taking the application of social networking to a whole new level by Twittering and posting YouTube and Facebook updates during surgery:

"Sherman Hospital in Elgin reportedly became the first hospital in Illinois to Twitter surgery Thursday when staffers posted live updates and video of a laparoscopic hysterectomy procedure from inside the operating room on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Dr. Raja Chatterji, the presiding surgeon, answered questions about the procedure and the decision to track it live here. Source: Huffington Post

While I think it's great that "live" updates are being given during surgery, I wonder if this comes at a cost to patient care. Are they hiring additional staff to manage this technology, or is this an added responsibility of existing staff.

If the latter is true, then I must admit that I would not want my surgical team being distracted by sending tweets and other social networking updates while I'm under the knife.

What do you think, is it okay if your surgeon sends tweets during surgery?