October 31, 2003
PDF Browser Plugin
I try to read lots of research papers and it has become truly a pain to constantly download them and then try to remember which paper is which. To add to the difficult, it's rare that the file's name is actually anything more than the last name of the author and an ID number.
Luckily, Josh at Unraveled pointed to a very cool plugin, the PDF Browser. Basically, it allows you to open up PDF's (and now Postscript files) in the browser. You can print or download them whenever you want. Hopefully this is going to help with my cluttered desktop.
October 30, 2003
October 29, 2003
Answering the call
It's not quite Mr. Smith Goes to Washington but Leonard is on his way to Little Rock.
Godspeed, my friend and good luck making something great!
October 27, 2003
Blog Summary
Peter Lindberg is doing some very cool. He is going through and creating summaries of the past few months worth of posts.
PKI blog
I found an interesting blog today while scanning Weblogs.com. It posts about anything which deals with public-key cryptography.
The End of the World
Coming out of the Burbank airport Friday night, I could smell the fire. Now it's early Monday morning and the fires are still raging.
October 22, 2003
Ballmer on security
Most of Ballmer's keynote was just smoke and mirrors but he did say one thing which totally annoyed me.
Ballmer also disputed the notion that open-source code is more secure than Windows. "The data doesn't jibe with that. In the first 150 days after the release of Windows 2000, there were 17 critical vulnerabilities. For Windows Server 2003 there were four. For Red Hat (Linux) 6, they were five to ten times higher," he said.
Umm, let's see. Comparing your most current product to something which is over four years old is really quite silly and calls for conclusions which just aren't there.
Cardboard Schedule
Alan released the code for Cardboard Schedule. It's a project planning app. I'm always a sucker for any type of app that plans. I'll definitely be checking it out.
Elite Status
A couple of weeks ago, I received a new rewards card for the Radisson. This is where I stay when I'm up in the office. I'm now part of their Elite program which I think is really just an excuse to give out yet another card.
Last night, I showed the card during check-in and I was upgraded to a room on the top floor. Now, it's not a penthouse but it is a bit bigger and has a few extras that are nice. The one drawback is that in order to get to the floor on the elevator, you need to use your key. This makes it difficult when you order out for food but I think I can manage.
OS X Startup Items
I've been trying to find ways to get various daemons running during the boot process and now I think I've found the information I needed.
October 20, 2003
Recasting the debate on IP
Greg Costik has a great rant on the silliness of the RIAA and some copyright history.
In general, when the RIAA complains about file-sharing, the refrain is that "artists" are being ripped off. I agree, 100%. Artists are indeed being ripped off--by the members of the RIAA. Anyone with more than a cursory understanding of business practices in the recorded music industry understands that the labels have refined the business of screwing recording arstists to a very fine art. With rare exception, musicians never see a dime beyond their initial advance--nor will they if the RIAA succeeds in its effort to suppress file trading. Realistically, this is not about defending artists. It's about defending the labels.
Weed
HubLog points to Weed, an interesting looking file sharing program. Basically it allows the artist to set their own prices and also allows the listener to earn a bit via sharing the music with friends.
The bummer parts of it are basically that it's all Windows-based.
Costs of Using JXTA
Interesting paper on JXTA. It gives a nice overview and analysis on how JXTA performs and where some of the bottlenecks can be.
CodeCon 2004
A new website for CodeCon was launched today as well as the call for papers.
The cool thing about CodeCon is the fact you need to have working code in order to present. Much different from some conferences where a snazzy demo is all you need.
Due date is December 15.
October 16, 2003
TunA
Matt Webb points to TunA which allows people to share music locally through handheld devices. Very cool!
Also, check out the links to others at the bottom of Matt's post.
Creating a Killer Product
Forbe has a cool article about how some companies have successfully created products which everyone wants or uses.
Basically it boils down to people wanting to hire things to do jobs. They give an example of why people were ordering milkshakes in the morning. The commute was long and boring and people were getting hungry so a milkshake saved the day.
P2P GIA
MIT is working on a peer-to-peer system which would allow citizens to add data on various government officials and departments.
By keeping things distributed, the data will not be located on a central server and thus won't be able to be shut down easily.
Cool stuff.
October 15, 2003
Emotions
I wish I could put into words everything I'm feeling right now, sadness, pain, anger and so many others. Sure, I realize that I'm just a fan and it's just a game but that doesn't make my disappointment go away.
When you are a Cubs fan, you aren't used to getting this close to the promised land, only to have the gate closed once again. Perhaps I'll have more to say about this tomorrow but somehow I don't think so.
Urban Studies and Planning
For some reason, I'm thinking about working my way through a couple of the 'free' classes in Urban Studies and Planning.
October 14, 2003
Charles on Google and Weblogs
Charles has a great post. Read it.
The web does not exist to serve Google. The web should not stay stagnant so as not to break its search engine. The web evolves continuously. It is up to Google to change itself to adapt to what people want to do with the Web. If Google can not adapt, then one day we will talk of it in the same way we speak of Altavista, Metacrawler, Excite or Hotbot: search engines we used to rely on, but that were each eclipsed by something better.
Joel on Exceptions
Joel has posted a lightning rod. It's about exceptions are bad and programmers should use return codes instead.
Personally, I think he's off base but luckily I can just point to a few responses instead of having to deal with it myself.
October 13, 2003
Alternate terminal apps
Brent asks for info on why people switched away from the Terminal.app on OS X. Most folks are using iTerm it seems though I did just find out about GLterm after reading some of the comments.
I do like the tabs in iTerm but the supposed speed of GLterm sounds might nice.
October 11, 2003
Why no Cubs talk?
A couple people have asked me why I'm not writing about the Cubs in the League Championship Series and I guess the answer is that I'm so emotionally spent after watching the game, I can't write about it.
October 10, 2003
Good stuff from Scoble
Scoble (as usual) has put together some interesting links.
A look at why bloggers use Macs.
Three Degrees is going to be released again. There were many problems with the first release so we'll see how this one goes.
Of course, here's a different take on Microsoft and teenagers.
October 09, 2003
Ontonet
Ontonet is a storage management and database technology company focused on managing disparate data everywhere. Whatever that means... I found this link via JXTA Developer spotlight.
The cool thing is that the founder of the company has a blog which has some good stuff.
Subversion over RSS
LaughingMeme points to a cool eXSLT transformation for the Subversion changelog. It turns it into RSS so you could keep up with development through your aggregator. Awesome!
October 07, 2003
Pushing Peer-to-Peer
Simson Garfinkel takes a look at ways in which peer-to-peer systems could help the current state of the Internet.
HotOS
No, it's not the last hotornot spoof. It's the latest workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems.
It looks like there are some good papers to read including a look at peer-to-peer storage and an analysis of compare-by-hash
Bookslut
Bookslut is cool monthly webzine dedicated to those who love to read. There's also a blog which has good stuff.
October 05, 2003
What a day!!!!!!!
Bears win!!!!
Red Sox win!!!
and then....
CUBS WIN!! CUBS WIN!! CUBS WIN!!
How I'm going to survive through the next series remains to be seen...
October 02, 2003
Ray Ozzie on the death of email
Interesting post from Ray Ozzie on the death of email and the rise of collaborative apps.
PET2004
The Privacy Enhancing Technologies Workshop will be held in Toronto next May.
Papers are due on the 26th of January.
October 01, 2003
Disappointment
So, it's all tied going back to Wrigley on Friday. The Cubs had their chances but it wasn't enough.
At least Prior will be on the mound.
FOAF-a-Matic Mark 2
Leigh has released the next version of the FOAF-a-Matic. This can create a FOAF file for you using a nice, easy Web UI. Much easier than trying to figure everything out with a text editor.
I created my FOAF file with the original version so I might have to try to update with some of the new functionality.
Russ on Google's AdSense
After Erik got letter from Google indicating they had disabled his AdSense account had been disable, Russ takes a harsh look at the Terms and Conditions of the AdSense program.
The main problem I see is that the whole system has little feedback to the user. All the records and accounting are at the mercy of Google and while Google might be a trustworthy company, there still needs to be some sort of checks and balances to make the system fair.