Blog Posts
All my blog posts and articles
November 2005
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2005-11-19
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2005-11-18
The $100 Laptop
You might have heard of Nicholas Negroponte’s (Wikipedia bio – maybe better than the one he wrote himself!) project to create a so-called hundred dollar laptop. He spoke about it at the recent Pop!Tech conference, and the first prototype was unveiled last night. Andy Carvin got a chance to play with it and prepared this very interesting video documentary about it. Check it out.
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2005-11-18
Web 2.0 — mash ups — Kayak — and nude beaches ?!
Did you know that Curacao is the 7th favorite place that travelers from Boston consider when they are looking for nude beaches in the Caribean? Miami is the first, Aruba the second.
This important bulletin brought to you by Kayak Buzz, a neat web-2.0-kayak-mashup-with-google that I just came across. You can look at the URL above to see how it’s formed. The funny thing is that the nude beach search isn’t available unless you include the magic, secret “&ac=nude” clause.
You should check out Kayak, it’s a really good travel search site that automates what you know you are already doing – which is to visit all the other travel sites with the same itinerary to see who has the best deal at this moment.
Technorati Tags: travel
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2005-11-16
All you ever wanted to know about Crypto
Looks like this is practically an online book on the topic. Also, WikiPedia has a detailed entry on the subject. (Via Digg)
Technorati Tags: crypto
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2005-11-16
Ray Ozzie’s Blog V3
Read more →Glad to see that Ray is blogging again. Now that he is at Microsoft running the big new initiative this should be a really interesting one to follow!
“A couple of weeks ago, Bill and I brought life to a new initiative that, over the course of the months and years ahead, will catalyze and deliver a number of things that I’m very excited about. At that event, I said that unlike many other stealth projects I’ve/we’ve done, in this case many of our plans and offerings will evolve progressively and in the open, shaped in good measure by a dialog with you.” (from Ray Ozzie’s Blog)
Looks like it will be real...
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2005-11-15
Interesting Wired article about War Blogs
I came across this a little while ago in Wired about War Blogs. Pretty amazing stuff:
“Strong opinions throughout the military ranks in and out of wartime are nothing new. But online technology in the combat zone has suddenly given those opinions a mass audience and an instantaneous forum for the first time in the history of warfare. On the 21st-century battlefield, the campfire glow comes from a laptop computer, and it’s visible around the world.” (from Wired)
Read the whole thing – it’s interesting.
Technorati Tags: corantessa
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2005-11-12
Did MSFT leak on purpose, or did they know they could easily be leaked?
Read more →I’ve read several accounts relating to Microsoft’s recently ‘leaked’ documents about the new strategy, for example, Cringely says:
“While ostensibly written solely for internal discussion, the documents from Bill Gates and new Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie were clearly supposed to be leaked.”
… and …
“These are external marketing documents — the equivalent of those ubiquitous white papers …” (via Scripting News)
I have a couple of thoughts on this:
“On Purpose” is relative: Any email that is sent to tens of thousands of people is essentially certain to be leaked.
Any expe...
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2005-11-11
Roku Roku Roku: Aint Technology Great?
Read more →
This little gem really works! A StarTrek cool little device that sits on top of your stereo or TV set. It’s called a Roku Soundbridge M1000. Has a remote control, built-in Wi-fi (which DOESN”T MEAN wireless fidelity, darn it) and various audio-outs to connect to your amplifier. Simple as pie....
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2005-11-10
What blogs are good for: Learning about Microsoft
Read more →So can you learn anything useful from a blog? I’ve often spoken admiringly to friends about Microsoft blogging. I’ve said that, it’s not so much that people are giving away any trade secrets. You learn stuff that are not secret, but you probably would only find out if you ran into someone in a Starbucks in Redmond.
Exhibit #1 (which I’ve used before, but continues to impress) Steve Sinofsky’s Microsoft TechTalk Blog. Look at an amazing recent post on a topic of vital interest if you are doing business or doing partnering with MSFT.
“I’ve been asked quite a bit by people interviewing at Microsoft about “s...
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2005-11-08
Learning about Open Source
Peter Moldave, a friend of mine who has helped me immensely with BlogBridge has (gulp) started blogging! Yup, another one bites the dust 🙂Peter is a lawyer (at Gesmer Updegrove LLP), expert in intellectual property, patents, licensing, open source, and other legal matters of great interest to us computer folk.
He also has a comprehensive site on all matters relating to open source, Check out his site and blog, it’s very informative!
Technorati Tags: blogbridge, opensource
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2005-11-07
Ultimate baby name choser
This one has made the rounds, but in case you haven’t seen it yet. Whether or not you are expecting a baby, have a child, or just love cool visualizations, you’ve gotta check out “The Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager“. Incredibly cool!Technorati Tags: babyboomers
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2005-11-04
Swallowing an umbrella
“The sword passes within millimetres of the heart, aorta, and other vitals but, surprisingly, few deaths related to sword swallowing have been described. A Canadian sword swallower did die, but that was after swallowing an umbrella.” (from BMJ.com, the General Medical Journal, online, via MetaFilter.)
You do learn the darndest things on the web, don’t you?
Technorati Tags: funny
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2005-11-04
Wiki as in Wikipedia
Read more →I assume you know about Wikis and the Wikipedia. If not, click on the links to the left and you’ll both find out and experience it, in one fell swoop.
On BlogBridge we use a Wiki as a very lightweight project collaboration tool. Minimalist eRoom if you like. That’s the kind that most often occurs to me.
But if you think about Wikipedia articles work, they are actually meant to properly describe or define something that exists and has a name. In other words, they specifically are meant to be ...
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2005-11-03
For advanced nerds only: How the deathstar works
From How Stuff Works:
“There is no question that the last few years of world history have seen a fair share of chaos and disorder. With so much global unrest, governments worldwide are struggling to devise new methods to maintain order. The Galactic Empire’s solution to order is the Death Star.”
How Stuff Works has come a long way, with sections on Science, Health, Entertainment etc. Check it out!
Technorati Tags: cool
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2005-11-03
Google API -> Open Standard
Read more →I really like this idea that Dave Winer has put forward: “Let’s make the Google API an open standard”, where he says, among other things:
“We’ve asked for a plug-in architecture for search engines, and if we can’t have that, a solid easy-to-program API is a pretty good alternative.”
Read the whole thing – there are some really good insights there.
Think of it, you could build a “search powered” application. Ok you can do that now, but you are limited to powering your API with Google and no-one else.
What if you could let the user select which search engine to use? Google? Yah...
October 2005
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2005-10-30
[GEEK] OPML Validator
Read more →I just came across Dave Winer’s new, beta, OPML Validator, which is a welcome development. While there is an OPML spec, having a validator too is a great, pragmatic, concrete way to give a big thumbs up or down to a particular piece of XML
From the very start BlogBridge has supported OPML for import and export, as well as for various internal representations and communications. We obviously have done our best to write valid OPML, as best as we understood what that was.
Still, what trumps every theoretical position on OPML validity are user cries o...
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2005-10-29
One more little meme
Here’s another cute one I came across, at BlogOn 2005:
“Trojan Mouse Strategy” – when you try to develop grass roots adoption of your software, bypassing IT.
Technorati Tags: meme
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2005-10-28
Thinking about business models
Read more →Inquisitor is a really cool program that augments the search box in Safari (which for you heathens out there is the default Mac OS X web browser.) It’s kind of hard to explain just what it does – it’s kind of a magical word completion thingie that guesses, based on other searches and who knows what else, what you are going to search for.
But I am not writing about Inquisitor, although I recommend it highly. Here’s a post by it’s author, Dave, who is trying to figure out how or whether he can make some money with his creation.
“Why am I considering pay-per-download? Well, one advantage is that it’s far easier to do than a full-blown regi...
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2005-10-28
Ease of use?
I recently had to buy a new cell phone, and learning how to use it reminded me again about how complicated these things are. How many out there have not bothered to learn something as simple even as programming in some commonly called numbers? I know I probably use only 30% of the features.
A buddy of mine had the idea that what the cell phone makers should do is to design a cell phone specifically for the elderly.What would it look like? Probably exactly like the phone they use at home. Big buttons and hardly any functions.
While we are modifying cell phones, who is going to be the first build a pedometer into a cell phone. Perfect for aging baby boomers suddenly worrying about their health!
Technorati Tags: cellphone, babyboomers
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2005-10-26
You say tomato – I say tomahto
Read more →The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;...