Posts

Thanks to The Stuffed Dog for linking to my author’s journal. Work continues on the book … Java. Open? No, closed. I don’t think this should surprise anyone. I’m a bit disappointed that Sun is trying to blame this on Microsoft, though. I read a message from David Farber’s Interesting People list that said DejaNews is tracking all of the links in newsgroup messages that people click on. So, not only do they track which newsgroups you search, and which articles you read, but also which Web links you follow, and which email addresses you click on to send mail. Icky. ...

It seems like the music industry is still in denial about the future of MP3. Looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard way … The PC Bible web site is a really cool book support Web site. I’d like to do something like it for my next book, although I’d just open the kimono and let everyone see everything. I’m surprised it took so long to completely fail, but the shoe has finally dropped and Time-Warner’s mega-site Pathfinder has bit the dust. ...

So, what do you collect? Beanie Babies? Baseball cards? Stamps? Groups of employees from Internet Service Providers? No matter your fetish, eBay offers what you’re looking for. IBM has created a new XML web site. Structured data geeks of the world, unite!

Amazon.com purchased three companies today, one of which hasn’t even released a product! How do I get in on that? They acquired Alexa Internet, which provides the technology behind the What’s Related feature in Netscape, and is affiliated with Brewster Kahle’s efforts to “archive the Internet.” These acquisitions all seem to be part of Amazon.com’s plans of world domination, but I’m lost trying to figure out how it all relates. The local business rag has an article on Red Hat that talks about their impending IPO. By the way, Red Hat 6.0 (announced today) includes 30 days of free phone support for installation questions. ...

The Red Herring discusses the growing absurdity of Internet IPOs. It seems the only thing left to disagree about was when they started becoming absurd. I fall into the “right at the beginning” camp. What happens when marketing goes wrong? The Washington Post reports on the fallout at Miller from the unsuccessful “Dick” ad campaign. The sad thing is, some of those ads were really great. Now they’re back to riffing on the “Tastes great! Less filling!” ads from 1975. ...

According to News.com, “trenchcoat mafia” domain names are going like hotcakes. You can always count on the least common denominator … Apple’s release of its Quicktime servers as open source software is a gutsy and surprising move. I hope it works out. In the wake of a tragedy, the most cynical bastards around tend to make their identities known through their actions. Time and time again, the filter-mongers at Cybersitter have shamelessly proven that they’re willing to indulge in the most callous use of awful circumstances to market their products. ...

osOpinion has a short and nearly worthless article about FreeBSD. Even so, it’s nice to see FreeBSD get some press. Geeks will appreciate: Linux Development Tools. Best Buy has stopped ordering iMacs because they don’t want to sell all five flavors, according to this San Francisco Chronicle article. IDC’s report, Strategies for Windows NT in the Enterprise , sets the record straight with regard to Windows NT adoption, and takes the computer industry press to task for buying into Microsoft’s marketing hype. (The report costs 795 bucks, so for most of us, the abstract will have to do.) ...

Has anyone used a program that converts documents in other formats to RTF? If so, send me email. Sage advice from Linus Torvalds: differentiate between the hype and the facts. Interworld covers his speech at Comdex. Mozilla posted some information about an open source instant messaging product, but then pulled it back. Could this be AOL pulling on the reins? They have their own instant messaging products (ICQ and AIM) to protect. The Microsoft earnings beat goes on. ...

The most interesting story thusfar in the Kosovo crisis comes from the Glasgow Herald. According to the report, the bombing of civilians by US aircraft came about after the Serbs called in a strike on the position using a cell phone taken from a captured KLA member who was spotting Serb military units under the direction of the CIA. Fresh after redesigning its site to appear more portal-esque, changing everyone’s titles so that they don’t look like they work for a magazine, and buying the Well, Salon magazine (err, just Salon now) has filed for an IPO. ...

You know what? This kid has a brother. Eckhard Pfeiffer at Compaq fell on his sword. Bring back Rod Canion! The capitalization on the free software, I mean “open source,” phenomenon continues. Ziff-Davis is hoping to make some money through its open source conference. News.com has an article that says Apple will release some of QuickTime 4.0 as open source software. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t mention any specifics, like what the license will be, or what parts of QuickTime will be released as source. ...