Timing

Comment: This is an interesting blog about online collaboration, online communities in the workplace.

Making XP dance with Samba - smh.com.au

Comment: I have several machines at home and getting them to talk network wise is always a pain in the rear. I want to keep this link handy for when I get around to try to print from my Linux to an XP printer.

Palm's wireless disconnect | CNET News.com Take Palm's new Tungsten W device. The company will begin selling the combination cell phone, e-mail and organizer device on Friday, but early reviews haven't been flattering. Although critics noted a number of problems, one of the biggest from the point of view of business users could well be the lack of server software enabling secure, wireless access to corporate data.

Comment: I'm an enterprise guy who doesn't need the enterprise functionality, so maybe this device will rock my world soon.

Linux Today - PR: Qt Used to Develop Adobe Photoshop Album Trolltech has announced that Adobe System's new product, Adobe Photoshop Album, was developed using Trolltech's Qt, a multiplatform C development framework.

Comment: We're using TRollTech and recommending QT as every occasion we have here at Macadamian. It's a great Framework to work with and if you do your homework right for the rest of the software you can have a cross platform application in no time...

Scripting News Microsoft's threedegrees sounds really interesting. I read about it in Newsweek, current issue. It's an icon on your desktop that you can drop MP3s on. Then every one of your friends will hear the tune.

Comment: This is cool!

IT still looks for offshore help - ADTmag.com As the sagging economy continues to hammer corporate America, CIOs are increasingly outsourcing work offshore in a bid to cut costs.

Comment: Outsourcing does't have to be painful. Outsourcing doesn't mean you don't know what is going on.Outsourcing doesn't mean loosing control over your project. Outsourcing means looking at tasks that are not mission-cirtical, that would be too expensive or time consuming to learn in-house, where the knowledge gained cannot be reused and get them done elsewhere. "Outsourcing means your team can pick up the phone and know whom to call and the offshore team becomes the virtual extension of your own group. Outsourcing means it is silly to consider where a company or a team is located more important thans what it can do for your organization."

India Or Bust? presentation from last July which suggests that Microsoft move some of its software development work to India

Comment: While this is not news to me, the presentation is, I had read about it in BusinessWeek a short while ago...It's good for future reference as to why outsource to India or Offshore.

Peer-to-Peer The new Windows XP Peer-to-Peer SDK and the related Windows XP Peer-to-Peer Update will help developers create advanced networking applications. The SDK provides documentation and sample code while the XP Update adds advanced networking support to the XP client, including enhanced IPv6 support

Comment: Finally... now we can start thinking about linking people together through the use of their apps and the work they do. I have yet to look at the services provided.

Intel gets inside life sciences | CNET News.com Intel gets inside life sciences

Comment: Name me one CO supplying tech and software who doesn't want get into Life Sciences!

Hosted Windows Apps Coming Online with Linux CrossOver Officer allows users to run Microsoft Office natively on Linux desktops. Based on the WINE Project (of which Codeweavers is a major backer), CrossOver Office is intended to allow users to run Lotus Notes, Office 2000, Office XP, Quicken and Visio 2000 inside Linux. CrossOver Office Server Edition allows organizations to host their Windows applications on Linux servers.

Comment: Around 3 years ago the CEO of CO we work for was telling some people were really interested in this kid of technology, and I was puzzled...why in the heck would one go that route. The facts are I was too close to the technology weaknesses, mainly WINE at the time (chugging along of Corel's applications for Linux) and not close enough the the business realities... When you're an engineer, doing an engineering job it's hard to be a business person thinking like a businessman and vice-versa.

More IT firms look overseas to cut costs | CNET News.com The second-highest ranking growth opportunity for IT outsourcing was "near shore" application management, Gartner said. Near-shore refers to operations located in countries such as Canada or Latin America.

Comment: Well one good news... but several others are worth thinking more seriously about.

Wired News: Now Bloggers Can Hit the Road because more and more cell phones are being sold with integrated digital cameras. Sales of those phones are expected to exceed those of stand-alone digital cameras by the end of next year, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

Comment: I didn't think expectations were so high for those phones...I don't see myself just yet taking pictures with my phone, but I realize I might be a late adopter for this sort of stuff.

Mass High TechAllaire will advise the firm’s portfolio companies on their technology plans, evaluate the underlying tech of potential investments, and help form seed engineering teams to work on new market opportunities identified by the firm’s investors.

Comment: I'm happy is not going to be in this entrepreneur in residence role so familiar in vc firms nowadays...

duct tape : Peace on earth is possible. Ladies, We must stop raising assholes, or at least stop having sex with them.

Comment: A powerful statement...

Critics cite weak spots at Microsoft | CNET News.com "As the quality of this (open-source) software improves, there will be less and less reason to pay for core software-only assets that have become stylized categories over the years," such as Windows and Office, Stutz

wrote.

"Open-source software is as large and powerful a wave as the Internet was, and is rapidly accreting into a legitimate alternative to Windows," Stutz warned. "It can and should be harnessed."

Comment: One of the guy behind Rotor, he resigned from MS and posted this just over a week ago. Strong divergence between him and MS from what I can read. Interesting to hear someone who lived and breathed the PC model for so long, trash it all...In a way I think lots of things he is saying are right on the money. On the other hand when you're so close to the center everything is blown out of proportion and so emotive.

Lindows.com offers anti-virus software for its OS For the new software, called VirusSafe, Lindows.com took Central Command's Vexira Antivirus for Linux Workstation software and adjusted it to integrate it with the LindowsOS operating system, said John Bromhead, Lindows.com's marketing vice president.

Comment: You know what maybe Lindows is paving the way for a paying Linux users ecosystem.

Maximize ROI With a Project Office - Computerworld According to The Standish Group International Inc. in West Yarmouth, Mass., schedule delays on IT projects still occur 63% of the time, while 45% of companies face cost overruns. Overall, 23% of all projects fail, which means the project is canceled before completion or is never implemented. Furthermore, 49% of projects are challenged, meaning that the project is completed but is over budget, exceeds the time estimate or boasts fewer features and functions than initially specified.

Comment: Do you think we could all use a little help here in formalizing this development process? I'd like to know if the figures are improving and what the stats are when compared to CO following CMM and other models. anybody? fred@macadamian.com

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time Google, which runs the Web's premier search site, has purchased Pyra Labs, a San Francisco company that created some of the earliest technology for writing weblogs, the increasingly popular personal and opinion journals.

Comment: Wow and I was worried last week about MS coming out with free asp for blogging... Now that Blogger is in the hands of Google Blogger is on the safe side... I'm very happy for those guys mainly Evan Williams who went through the whole bubble burst and kept things going for us... thanks! Now that blogging is going to be big, what does it mean? more blogs, more content by joe users, and what else? As Ray Ozzie would put it, what's at the intersection of blogosphere and the desktop, opportunities or more of the same?

Business intelligence tops 2003 tech ROI potential - Computerworld "I'm highly supportive of the BI recommendation. Most organizations have yet to exploit the value of their information," said Craig Luigart, CIO at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington.

Comment: Mkes total sense to me... Good for Cognos as well one of the leader in BI tools, a customers of ours. There is so much info now, that I think we will see a surge in specialized BI tools, ie vertical markets...

Opera unleashes Swedish Chef on MSN - Computerworld The cheeky move, announced today, comes in retaliation for the discovery two weeks ago that the MSN portal was targeting Opera users by providing them with a purposely broken page, Opera said.

Comment: Isn't this odd, that a portal developer would actually turn off users, oh wait, the portal is own byt the same copmany which develops Internet Explorer, it makes total sense then... wink wink!

DesktopLinux.com ... Join the Desktop Linux revolution!: Articles > View > Full text Hilton hotels recently learned -- Xandros delivers the corporate desktop

Comment: Good for Xandros a CO based right here in Ottawa. Numerous rumours later, they are still moving a long. I was user of Corel Linux, I'm now on RedHat 8.0. I'm still debating giving a shot to the Xandros OS, I have a setup that is more or less good right now. On top of it, if you want access to the latest and greatest with the risks that come with the latest and greatest, Xandros is not for you...because of the changes they do to KDE's libraries. It's a matter of choice.

Windows XP Media Center Edition

Comment: The windows media center OS, this could prove a good place for innovation...

idleworm: games - gulf war 2

Comment: Oh Well, this is why we think the situation is explosive and that one war will resolve the issue is kidding ourselves...

OSNews' Support for Konfabulator on OS X and Mobile Devices - OSNews.com There's a cool little app called Konfabulator for Mac OS X that allows you to display, build, and modify little "widgets" for your desktop, like the weather, a clock, or the OSNews top stories, updated continuously! Screenshot here. Thanks to Adam Pearson for the source sample. Additionally, we added support for a truckload of mobile devices and we would need your help testing them.

FB I see lots of reference to this utility app for OS X, I would like to know if such a thing exists for windows, and if not would it be as popular as it is on OS X, because apple users are always more gadget oriented that their windows counterpart...

Gizmodo : Digital Media Adapter New Digital Media Adapter from Linksys that connects to your stereo system for streaming audio from your PC

Now you're talking...looking forward to this Gizmo...

Microsoft previews development tools - Computerworld ASP.Net Starter Kits, to be offered for free, are intended to help developers quickly build ASP applications. Starter kits are included for community, portals, time tracker, reports, and commerce applications. The company may at some point expand the starter kits to include applications such as Web logging, according to Shawn Nandi, product manager in Microsoft's developer division. Web logging may be added to the community kit, he said.

Here we go again... but do not expect to make money straight out of blogging tool environment anymore... M$ is coming to town. Lots of it is open source and you can use basic service for free, but what about a CO like UserLand?

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - More on Nick Denton's Pro Blogs What both have in common -- and what upcoming sites (including one devoted to what Denton calls ``high-class erotica'') will share -- is their demographic aim. Denton is looking upscale, in niches that are too small to aim a magazine, much less an urban newspaper. Smart.

By reading this piece from Dan Gilmor, I'd like to see his vision come true. Blogging is by far a personal tool now, but how do you make money from it, he's pointing at an experiment that sounds good to me.

More deep thoughts on the Dell dude @ Gawker More deep thoughts on the Dell dude The guy was trying to buy pot on the Lower East Side while wearing a fucking kilt. On some level, he was just asking to get busted.

Too bad, I thought the Dell dude was smarter than that...

Photoshoped Dell dude

CMP Media Press Releases Web Services Tools -- BEA WebLogic Workshop (BEA Systems) -- BizTalk Server 2002 (Microsoft) -- IBM WebSphere Studio (IBM) -- M7 Application Assembly Platform (M7) -- Macromedia Contribute (Macromedia) -- SOAP Scope 1.0 (Mindreef) -- SOAPtest (Parasoft)

One thing struck me this morning reading the awards. The mindreef guys are on it, with a product that has been barely out for a few months. Good for them. Where there is technology, there is always a need to specialized development assisting tools, whether debugging, performance, testing.... that seems to elude the big boys.

Microsoft moves ahead on Xdocs - Tech News - CNET.com nfoPath will use XML to allow office workers to create electronic forms that will automatically share data with other documents and back-end business systems. Microsoft is hoping to corner a share of the XML-based content management software market. Market researcher ZapThink, based in Waltham, Mass., estimates the value of the market for XML-based content management software at more than $11 billion by 2008.

Now one should be able from Office app Forms to submit data directly into the backend. We're talking about where is the innovation on the desktop these days, maybe as M$ suggests it is in helping your day to day desktop apps tab into the backend

Linux Today - PCWorld: Is Microsoft Afraid of Open Source? "Microsoft said that it may have to reduce the prices it charges for its products, and revenue and operating margins may consequently decline if the open-source movement continues to gain market acceptance. I don't understand why they would say such a thing... It sounds laim to me.

Group to push Linux for desktop computing - Computerworld Jeremy White, interim chairman of the consortium and the CEO of Codeweavers, said the idea gained support late last year after casual talks among members of the open-source community. A 90-day timeline is now in place, with the goal of bringing in OEMs and major technology companies to give it a broad reach, he said. I applaud Jeremy's effort here. Codeweaver's product is pretty good give it a whirl if you run Linux. The one thing I would like them to post are productivity metrics for people using Crossover, maybe this would help organisations make the switch where it makes sense if productivity is the same at a cheaper cost...

Borland Catches .Net I think this is fairly significant for .Net. I'm sure this wasn't an easy thing for Borland to pull-off oddly enough. In the end this will give credibility to .Net in shops that would not have considered it before.

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Breaking News: NASA Asks Public for Shuttle Photo Uploads NASA is asking the public to help in the investigation of the shuttle tragedy. The agency has set up this page giving instructions on how people with photographic evidence -- photos and video -- can upload it to NASA servers for further investigation. Amateurs are called in... this is not new witnesses have always been part of the deal to solve a mystery. What I feel is new now, is the way NASA goes about asking for help, through the web to submit evidences...I think this is the good part, they want to resolve the issue and it's not by going to ask everybody one by one you will resolve it. Granted they must have people doing it anyway, but the internet is on the radar now...