There’s a new meme floating around, “Freemium“, a cute/clever word for a kind of business model. Giving it away free.
Say what?
You may know that I am associated with a software product which is given away free. BlogBridge is a substantial, useful, real product, which for some crazy reason, we give away free. Everyone wants to know, “What’s your business model”? So now I have a cool/web2.0 response: “Freemium.”
Many people have written about this new term, even though as far as I can tell it was coined...
Last night’s event was a lot of fun. A ton of energy in the room, people huddling around comparing notes, even doing some demos. The place was nice and loud (good) and packed (also good!)
My friend Francois posts a horrifying real-life story about him and his Mercedes Benz. It makes a compelling read, kind of like watching a train wreck is compelling.
“My final analysis? No wonder Mercedes has tumbled to 21st in the most recent JD Power Satisfaction Survey. It is mind boggling (instructive too) to witness and experience how such a prestigious brand has fallen so far so fast. And while I’ve learned something, believe me that it’s been no fun being on the receiving end of this knowledge.” (from “...
Ever wonder how Mac’s OS X program launch and execution works? No? Hmm.
Anyway, here’s a fascinating article telling you more than you ever thought you wanted to know!
“As you can see, executing a process in OS X is a complex affair, and I have tried to cover as much as is necessary for a useful debugging session.” (from “How OS X Executes Applications”)
In The Economist, there’s an interesting overview of Open Source, what it is, strengths, weaknesses, and what’s in store for it. It introduces the catchy metaphor (or is it simile) “… occupying the space between a Corporation and a Commune:
“Even if the cracks in the management of open source can be plugged by some fairly straightforward organisational controls, might it nevertheless remain only a niche activity—occupying, essentially, the space between a corporation and a commune?” (from “The Economist“)
I’m a big fan of Wikipedia, and of course traditionally (like anyone) have been an admirer of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Recently the highly respected magazine Nature published an article describing a study in which they compared the two and found only slightly fewer inaccuracies in Wikipedia than in Britannica.
“The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.” (from “...
Have you heard how Microsoft is shipping Windows Live and Office Live and this-live and that-live? I’ve seen this movie before and I have to say that I am skeptical. A competitor starts getting successful with a line that Microsoft doesn’t own and out comes the “me-too-FUD” based on smoke and mirrors.
After all, Office has had ActiveX controls forever, and I would just not be too surprised if Office Live is just a re-assembly of some cool parts that they had lying around with a really great marketing push. Color me skeptical. Or cynical.
All the words of the english language, ordered by frequency, coupled with some really nifty graphic design and ajaxian coding. Enjoy!
This is the work of Jonathan Harris. Here are some of his other projects. Quite cool!
Correction: In fact as several readers have said, this site is not Ajax, it’s Flash! Which again proves why everyone’s obsession with Ajax is almost as bad as their our obsession with Web 2.0
Tivo has been doing more and more cool things with their little box.
See, it’s actually a Linux computer, with a 80Gig hard disk and a broadband connection to the internet, plus a big screen TV attached to it. Think of the possibilities 🙂
It seems to me that working even when off-line, even when away from my computer, would be top requirements for any calendar product. In other words, a downloadable application (Outlook anyone? iCal? Blackberry?)
I’d be worried if I could only access my calendar on live web connection.
Sure, GMail is hugely popular, and you could make that same argument there. But GMail lets me synch with...
Hello sports fans. We are having another super-informal-geeky-but-not-exclusively-geeks geek dinner, this time using the well-known PaB/Free Pattern.
Who is we, again? Bela Labovitch, Adam Green and me. We are fortunate that the folks at Top Ten Sources and RSS Labs are again letting use their space. Thanks!
What happens at this thing? Well this is the second one that we are organizing. Basically we just hang out, casually munch on cheap food and compare notes on stuff that people are working on.
Everyone is welcome, and people who came last time: invite...
There are a few really good newsletters that have not moved over to a blog which I read religiously. One of them is Doc Searls‘ Suitwatch. Doc writes a fairly long essay approximately monthly. It’s always interesting and well written. Here’s how his most recent episode, about CES in Las Vegas, begins:
“What could be more ridiculous than a city that wants to be like everywhere else? Venice, Paris, New York, Rome and Monte Carlo are all in Las Vegas, embodied as giant hotels, each as clichéd as a travel brochure. Nearly all the big theme hotels front The Strip, a wide paved line in a desert no...
glenn has been busy today. A series of very intriguing posts, all made today, a Sunday no less. I can remember when glenn insisted on keeping his Sunday’s clear of anything non-recreational. You should check out his blog, there’s lots of good stuff there.
This one caught my eye – “RSS is not a goal” wherein I encountered this especially meaningful (to me) paragraph:
“And in the meantime, if I were working on any kind of RSS/OPML-related application, I would take a day or two to stop and think about my goals, not in terms of today’s syntaxes but in terms of th...
This is only a little funny because Mac fans (and I am one of them) can be very smug about OS X security, saying things like: “There has been not a single case of a virus on Mac, ever.” Hard to prove or disprove but intuitively it’s kind of hard to believe.
So when I saw commentary somewhere earlier today that Mac OS X was hacked in less than 30 minutes I hesitated to post about it, thinking that it was yet another urban legend.
But now ZDNet has picked it up, and with raised eyebrows and a smile (or is it a smirk?) on my face, I share the link to an article I just saw:
“Gaining root access to a Mac is “easy pickings,” according to an individual who won an OS X hacking cha...
I’ve experimented with all kinds of novel music related services and products.
My favorite is Pandora. This is a a site that helps me discover new music that I like. It’s introduced me to several artists that I had never heard of before which are now favorites. In this case I am plugging Beth Nielsen Chapman. A wonderful singer songwriter, I think from Europe, that has the sound I really like. It’s quite wonderful to create a Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell or Bill Evans channel discover new artists.
It’s great!
By the way, also of interest are:
Last.FM – An application that is supposed to do something simi...
“Research In Motion Ltd. agreed to pay $612.5 million to settle its long-running legal dispute with patent firm NTP Inc., according to NTP lawyer Jim Wallace.”
