« February 6, 2005 - February 12, 2005 | Main | February 20, 2005 - February 26, 2005 »
I don't usually do this, but one of my investments launched a new website with expanded information on their RFID analytics focus. If you are interested in such things, there's some good material on their site.
Link: Google wont let you search for PHP resources anymore. What's next?.
Google won’t let you look beyond the first 10 results if you request it to find URLs that point to PHP resources.
Link: COMMON - another social network?.
Reader Craig mails in his newest start-up - COMMON.net:
"COMMON.net is a compelling alternative to social networking sites that create personal networks through the promotion of virtual chain letter-like invitations. Craig Callé, the Companys founder and CEO, observed, Social networks work well for online dating, but that model is far less effective when used in business applications. Most of our competitors are little more than Friendster® (a social network for dating) without the pictures. Our industry demands greater innovation.
The backlash in social networking is clearly out there with Friendster's slowing growth and Orkut's less usage. Maybe COMMON has a better approach? Happy about your reviews/ comments.
Related entries:
Neighbourhood Notice Boards - Virtually... - Nov 10, 2004
Monetizing Social Networking... - Jul 07, 2004
Using Bluetooth to Make F
Link: The Curse of the Secret Question.
I was at Bruce Schneier's site reading about the problems with SHA-1 and came across this gem:
It's happened to all of us: We sign up for some online account, choose a difficult-to-remember and hard-to-guess password, and are then presented with a "secret question" to answer. Twenty years ago, there was just one secret question: "What's your mother's maiden name?" Today, there are more: "What street did you grow up on?" "What's the name of your first pet?" "What's your favorite color?" And so on.
The point of all these questions is the same: a backup password. If you forget your password, the secret question can verify your identity so you can choose another password or have the site e-mail your current password to you. It's a great idea from a customer service perspective -- a user is less likely to forget his first pet's name than some random password -- but terrible for security. The answer to the secret question is much easier to guess than a good password, a
Link: TiVo exceeds 3 million subscribers, still losing money.
Digital-video recorder pioneer TiVo announced Friday it has exceeded 3 million subscribers.
When is someone going to make a MythTV device?
I thought I'd wait a couple of days before commenting, but I did change the style of my postings substantially this week. I used to write one post, the "main dish" that was a bunch of links plowed into a single post. It was convenient for me because I'm time constrained and it allowed me to post a lot of info in a reasonable amount of time.
The reason I changed is twofold. First and foremost, I think the traditional link blog style is more readable and more searchable, which increases it's utility. The seond reason for the change is that I'm using some new tools and can post in this new style without burning additional cycles.
After getting an update from the Onfolio guys at Demo this week, I downloaded their latest version and am using it as my primary feed reader. I can "collect" items of interest and blog them on the spot or later, and the integration with Typepad's Quickpost bookmarklet makes the entire process really easy. Seeing that I'm now using Quickpost I am taking advantage of more quoted material and the extended body section.
I'm also committed to doing more stuff with photos and mixed media, just not sure yet where I want to go with that. Lastly, while I am certainly not on the bleeding edge here, I am interested in exploring how blogs, wikis, search, and social software are converging in knowledge management. At some point, when it makes sense, I'll abandon Typepad for a dedicated server, but I don't have a plan on that yet.
looks like eBay has got a real problem on their hands, and the price increases are just the flash point. It's absolutely amazing to me that there are 254,000 stores on eBay, and another stat that I saw put the total number of people who were operating a business that used eBay as a primary sales channel was over 450,000. I believe it was the John Edwards (aka "Silk Pony") during the election campaign that ridiculed President Bush for pointing to eBay as an example of the new economy at work, but that's exactly what it is.
Separately, after seeing Meg Whitman in action over the years it is really amazing that the customer sat issue isn't a bigger focus for the company.
Link: EBay sellers riled at fees / Online auction site's vendors balk at higher prices.
So I covered Demo earlier this week, Ed is covering Linuxworld in Boston. I actually share Brad's opinion of conferences being the "me too zone", and truth be told, I also don't like conference because I don't like big crowds and I'm not always comfortable meeting new people. I guess it's Confession Friday (maybe something to do with Lent?).
The software compliance area that Ed hits on is a hot topic among IT shops. While I may be inviting the flamebots from /. with this next comment but I'll say it anyways: enterprise IT is really concerned about the legal issues around IT. It's one thing to have an OS or web server or even email server running as an open source application, but it's another issue altogether when you start talking about business applications. IT can swap out an OS, but if anything around their ERP system is at jeopardy then they are talking about real money - lost revenue and evaporating profits. There's something like 52 open source licenses in the market today, and a lot of questions about what starts to happen when they interact, or when the owner of the software (open source code is still "owned" by an entity) decides to change the license.
Link: BeyondVC: Linuxworld Boston.
Cuban's guide to losing $1B.
Separately, it has been reported that the NHL strike will be decided by a bare knuckle fistfight between the lawyers.
Link: How to Lose 1 Billion Dollars.
Ive never lost a billion dollars.
Its not easy to lose a billion dollars. Its even harder for an individual to lose $1,000,000,000.00
gee, ya think?
Link: Call centre users 'lose patience'.
Consumers are quicker to hang up when stuck in call centre waiting queues, a survey says, but call volumes are surging.
