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Multimedia
Webinar: Control a World of Computers From Your Linux PC
March 20, 2008
In this webinar, Carla Schroder, columnist, blogger, and author of the Linux Cookbook and Linux Networking Cookbook, covers the finer points of secure remote graphical administration from your Linux PC, showing how to run graphical applications, your...
Blog
Would better data analysis reduce the financial bail-out?
September 26 2008
As I understand it, the proposed bail-out is shooting seven hundred billion dollar-sized bullets into the dark. But banks know where their money is. We could figure out exactly how risky each asset is, exactly how much exposure each institution has to bad loans or collapsing stocks and bonds, and what the overall health… read moreMicrosoft Research offers a sampling in Cambridge, Massachusetts
September 22 2008
The opening of Microsoft Research's latest facility was celebrated today with a free one-day symposium here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I think the symposium succeeded in its goals of showing that the research facility is an independent entity that plays by the rules of open scientific debate and funds basic research of value to society. read moreA code of ethics from Brian McConnell concerning employee rights (follow-up and reply)
September 16 2008
Last week I wrote about a privacy-related controversy and extolled the Code of Ethics that proposed by my colleague Brian McConnell. I heard shortly afterward from the other side of the controversy, Virtual PBX, so I want to air their point of view here and wrap up what I've been told. read moreBorn Digital: A review for the moment
September 10 2008
Born Digital postulates a watershed between those born on or before 1980 and those born after. Although the book is advertised as a guide to the latter for those born earlier, I suspect that the marketing became unmoored from the authorship. That's because the book's arguments culminate in the message that its lessons need to… read moreA code of ethics from Brian McConnell concerning employee rights
September 04 2008
My colleague Brian McConnell has a story about employer abuse guaranteed to make you scared and angry. But finding something constructive and beneficial in an incident that was personally devastating, he offers a Code of Ethics concerning workplace privacy that seems to me simple, fair, and both technically and legally capable of being implemented. A call for… read moreNobody likes to be tracked--whether by NSA or DoubleClick
September 03 2008
Ecommerce professionals gush over targeted ads, claiming they'll make life easier on consumers and will supercharge advertising campaigns. But shouldn't someone ask the consumers how they feel about giving up personal information? Forrester Research has. read moreFences in the ether: Brazil's proposed Internet laws
September 03 2008
The subject of this article sounds like a mock-cartoon version of repressive censorship laws. But the proposals are real. They have been widely discussed in the Brazilian blogosphere and to some extent in the Brazilian press and TV, but they've received hardly any attention in the United States. read moreValidators: Asking for donations to pay for the news
August 29 2008
The New York times has a short article on community-funded journalism, in which the public pays a journalist in advance to cover a topic. I'm blogging this because, in the first place, it suggests a way technical information could be developed, and in the second place I anticipated the idea a year… read moreValidators: Asking for donations to pay for the news
August 24 2008
The New York times has a short article on community-funded journalism, in which the public pays a journalist in advance to cover a topic. I'm blogging this because, in the first place, it suggests a way many types of information could be developed, and in the second place I anticipated the idea a year… read moreProposed API for tools to help educate computer users online
August 17 2008
For several years I have recommended improvements to the tools that software projects use to answer technical questions and provide documentation, such as wikis and mailing lists. My latest contribution is a draft of an API that could be implemented in tools such as IDEs and content management systems. read moreHow copyright got to its current state (Patry blog ending)
August 17 2008
William Patry, one of the most respected online commentators on copyright, has shut down his weblog. It so happens that copyright is a major subject covered in a book recently released by O'Reilly, Van Lindberg's Intellectual Property and Open Source A Practical Guide to Protecting Code. This blog continues with a brief statement by… read moreHow copyright got to its current state (Paltry blog ending)
August 07 2008
William Patry, one of the most respected online commentators on copyright, has shut down his weblog. It so happens that copyright is a major subject covered in a book recently released by O'Reilly, Van Lindberg's Intellectual Property and Open Source A Practical Guide to Protecting Code. This blog continues with a brief statement by… read moreOpen Source convention wrap-up (2008)
July 25 2008
The computer industry is certainly not recession-proof, but the Open Source convention that's just wrapping up had more attendees than last year (we were up to about 2000), and discussions about starting businesses based on open source seemed to take place everywhere. And I don't mean just free software: open source… read moreMySQL forks: could Drizzle be the next of the new generation of relational database?
July 22 2008
I had a brief talk with leading MySQL develop Brian Aker today about one of the biggest turns in MySQL history: this morning's Drizzle announcement. Brian presented Drizzle as an irrevocable fork of MySQL. To me it represents four deliberate steps in one. Drizzle also calls to mind a lot… read moreThe behavior gap: three persistent problems for Internet technologies
July 16 2008
Behind the competing technologies for Internet application development--which impinge directly on the plans of Internet providers and dot-com businesses--lie some basic problems with Internet standards and protocols. Each technical problem is also a metaphor for difficulties in the way people interact, both online and off-line: we don't know how to handle many-to-many connections, we don't… read moreAlso find Andy on:
