These Things Matter to Me
Monday, October 31, 2005
Yay extra effort!
Emoticon pumpkin, via WillPate on Flickr.
Christy the Ipod ad. Starring Christy. Via Stereogum.
"Ricky as Google Image Search, via kottke.org.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Technology Companies: Why You Should Blog
Reason number 1. You Spend Less Time Repeating Your Message.
(from Weblogsinc's/ AOL's Jason Calacanis)
(from Weblogsinc's/ AOL's Jason Calacanis)
Recently I went to lunch with another CEO who doesn’t blog. He spent half the time explaining his business to me. I asked him if he had any questions for me and he rattled off like 20 facts about our business—really inside stuff. I asked him how he knew all that information and he said he read my blog. It was as if we had five meetings already. I could save my breath, he knew all about us.I can't tell you how much I appreciate and enjoy Sun's public blogs. Does this mean I always end up eating up the hype or enthusiasm for the stuff they're working on? No. Sometimes reading their blogs even helps me to realize I'm not interested in a particular solution of theirs. But either way, I understand where they're coming from, and both parties save time and evergy pursuing a relationship that'd go nowhere (as if they notice my relationship with their downloads).
When I asked him why he didn’t blog he said he didn’t have the time. Ironic considering he had just proved how much time a blog can save for a CEO!
Open Source Vanilla Forum Software to Get Integrated Login Support?
Oh, you. Lil Vanilla.
Two projects I'm working on right now require a nice forum/ discussion system. I've been digging the Lussomo Vanilla Forum software by Mark Sullivan for a while now. The user interface is the best forum stuff I've seen, with a really light way of drawing the ubiquitious forum tables. It also keeps the software branding toned town, and doesn't overload the admin and users with lots of noise for features that are rarely accessed. (Also, not only is it easy to install on Linux, but it installs without hacks on Windows XP.)
But a downside of Vanilla is its inability, at least via formal documentation, to integrate with other login systems within an environment. I'd love to use it with with either WordPress logins in certain sites, or with LDAP. As of today, you can't. This doesn't totally turn me off, but it bugs me.
But I was reading the forums, seeing if anybody had some hacks, and I read this promising note from Mark:
Oh, you. Lil Vanilla.
Two projects I'm working on right now require a nice forum/ discussion system. I've been digging the Lussomo Vanilla Forum software by Mark Sullivan for a while now. The user interface is the best forum stuff I've seen, with a really light way of drawing the ubiquitious forum tables. It also keeps the software branding toned town, and doesn't overload the admin and users with lots of noise for features that are rarely accessed. (Also, not only is it easy to install on Linux, but it installs without hacks on Windows XP.)
But a downside of Vanilla is its inability, at least via formal documentation, to integrate with other login systems within an environment. I'd love to use it with with either WordPress logins in certain sites, or with LDAP. As of today, you can't. This doesn't totally turn me off, but it bugs me.
But I was reading the forums, seeing if anybody had some hacks, and I read this promising note from Mark:
I am in talks with a client to do some work on Vanilla that will make it possible to have the user authentication separated from vanilla a little bit (making things like integrating vanilla with an existing login system a lot easier). In order to accomplish this, I will need to rush the development of Vanilla 0.9.3. Further to that point, the client's deadline is very short (mid-November from what I understand at this point), so it looks like the next rev will happen right around when I was predicting.Very cool. It was part of a larger thread about moving the GPL'd project into CVS or SVN.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Matt Asay leaves Novell. And sometimes expertise leaves to do other stuff. (BTW, the place he's going, Alfresco, sounds pretty cool.)
Friday, October 21, 2005
Novell will probably have to lay off 10% of its employees. I continue to wonder if it's possible to buy expertise.
Cute As a Button. 24 hours of New Toys from Ubuntu, VMware, and Flock
(the wee VMware Player in action)
VMware has released VMware Player. It's free. It can't create images on its own, but it can "play" and take advantage of almost everything VMware Workstation can set up in an image, like shared folders, and vmware-tools. VMware also set up a cute little Ubuntu-based "browser appliance." Endless uses. Using right now.
Ubuntu announced Ubuntu server 5.10.
Firefox-based browser Flock finally has seen the light of day! Not that it was late, but it's been months of anticipation. That's a long time these days, to not get to touch it. The browser has hooks for lots of web services like blogging and social bookmarking.
(the wee VMware Player in action)VMware has released VMware Player. It's free. It can't create images on its own, but it can "play" and take advantage of almost everything VMware Workstation can set up in an image, like shared folders, and vmware-tools. VMware also set up a cute little Ubuntu-based "browser appliance." Endless uses. Using right now.
Ubuntu announced Ubuntu server 5.10.
Firefox-based browser Flock finally has seen the light of day! Not that it was late, but it's been months of anticipation. That's a long time these days, to not get to touch it. The browser has hooks for lots of web services like blogging and social bookmarking.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Better Desktop is a usability project sponsored by Novell, working towards understanding how people use GNOME and KDE. (It features videos of how people approach every day tasks in the Linux desktop environment.)
Ubuntu 5.10 came out. Even for HP PA-RISC (finally!). (If operating systems had smells, Ubuntu 5.10 would smell like a beautiful summer rainstorm.)
Ubuntu 5.10 came out. Even for HP PA-RISC (finally!). (If operating systems had smells, Ubuntu 5.10 would smell like a beautiful summer rainstorm.)
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Solaris Start-Up Scripts. Reeeeemiiiiiiix.
Have you played with Solaris 10 yet? Is that a weird question? It's a strange time, my friend. The world seems so Linux crazy that I second-guess how much time I should be investing in learning other OS stuff, especially when even other operating systems, as different as they may be, seem to be adopting lots of Linux-isms, and striving for Linux compatibility.
Being a sysadmin, there's a constant fight inside my head about what to learn, what to put aside, what to investigate further, where to be shallow, where to be deep. I guess everybody struggles with that stuff, in every job, in every personal interest, responsibility, and creative pursuit... but when you're a system administrator, there's like this serve-and-protect vibe, and pride and sense of preparedness that comes in to play. I feel so bad when I get approached about a tool I know little about. I wanna choose tools that will serve me in as many situations as possible, and that will prepare me to learn new stuff, too. Sometimes, it seems like investing time and energy in Linux stuff is such a no-brainer, when it's so likely that it'll be applicable to non-Linux things, too.
I thought in Solaris 9, I saw signs of a Linux mind-meld, that Solaris was veering towards a similar administrative experience for both Linux and Solaris boxes. But with Solaris 10, there is no doubt that Solaris is feeling bold enough to be really different from previous versions of Solaris, and Linux.
A big example of this, is the SMF, a.k.a., the Service Management Facility. The SMF does a lot of work, and can manage a lot of stuff, but the most urgent thing about it is that it replaces "rc scripts," and the traditional way of checking on the status of any services run at boot. Phew!
When I get exposed to a new tool, I never feel immediate pressure to take advantage of its new features, but there's definitely pressure to learn the the new way of maintaing services that already exist. With SMF, Solaris 10 has given me both new toys that I look forward to playing with, and some kinda urgent homework. In some coming posts, I will look in more technical detail at how SMF has changed the boot process and service management, and how it can possibly improve things. For now, check out Sun's BigAdmin page on the SMF.
tags: solaris, unix, sysadmin, sun, linux,system administrator
Have you played with Solaris 10 yet? Is that a weird question? It's a strange time, my friend. The world seems so Linux crazy that I second-guess how much time I should be investing in learning other OS stuff, especially when even other operating systems, as different as they may be, seem to be adopting lots of Linux-isms, and striving for Linux compatibility.Being a sysadmin, there's a constant fight inside my head about what to learn, what to put aside, what to investigate further, where to be shallow, where to be deep. I guess everybody struggles with that stuff, in every job, in every personal interest, responsibility, and creative pursuit... but when you're a system administrator, there's like this serve-and-protect vibe, and pride and sense of preparedness that comes in to play. I feel so bad when I get approached about a tool I know little about. I wanna choose tools that will serve me in as many situations as possible, and that will prepare me to learn new stuff, too. Sometimes, it seems like investing time and energy in Linux stuff is such a no-brainer, when it's so likely that it'll be applicable to non-Linux things, too.
I thought in Solaris 9, I saw signs of a Linux mind-meld, that Solaris was veering towards a similar administrative experience for both Linux and Solaris boxes. But with Solaris 10, there is no doubt that Solaris is feeling bold enough to be really different from previous versions of Solaris, and Linux.
A big example of this, is the SMF, a.k.a., the Service Management Facility. The SMF does a lot of work, and can manage a lot of stuff, but the most urgent thing about it is that it replaces "rc scripts," and the traditional way of checking on the status of any services run at boot. Phew!
When I get exposed to a new tool, I never feel immediate pressure to take advantage of its new features, but there's definitely pressure to learn the the new way of maintaing services that already exist. With SMF, Solaris 10 has given me both new toys that I look forward to playing with, and some kinda urgent homework. In some coming posts, I will look in more technical detail at how SMF has changed the boot process and service management, and how it can possibly improve things. For now, check out Sun's BigAdmin page on the SMF.
tags: solaris, unix, sysadmin, sun, linux,system administrator
Hey Weird.
I was just looking at all the O'Reilly conferences coming up, and noticed that they weren't having a Mac OS X Conference this year. Not that it means that O'Reilly conferences are slippin or anything. They've been adding conferences like crazy: Where 2.0, Web 2.0, Emerging Telephony... So don't go there. O'Reilly conferences? Crazy successful!
But then on their conference archives page, the most recent Mac OS X Conference they list, is the 2003 one. One did happen in 2004. Anyway, none of this is that big of a deal, but I wonder the reason for the change. There are lots of reasons not have a conference. Sure, it could be lack of attendees (doubt it), or scheduling problems (doubt it). But I wonder if it's just more strategic. I wonder if O'Reilly Media is seeing a role for itself mostly in covering things that don't get covered so well elsewhere, and Mac stuff isn't as wanting as other stuff? Just thinkin. I love Tim O'Reilly's Perl-is-so-popular-but-nobody-talks-about-it story in the NerdTV interview (it's free people, check it out). It demonstrates not only his ability to distill trends from lots of noise, but how his company can also go on to become advocates for things that don't get the proportional attention they have coming to them. Anyway, Macs... Yeah. They don't have an O'Reilly conference this year.
But then on their conference archives page, the most recent Mac OS X Conference they list, is the 2003 one. One did happen in 2004. Anyway, none of this is that big of a deal, but I wonder the reason for the change. There are lots of reasons not have a conference. Sure, it could be lack of attendees (doubt it), or scheduling problems (doubt it). But I wonder if it's just more strategic. I wonder if O'Reilly Media is seeing a role for itself mostly in covering things that don't get covered so well elsewhere, and Mac stuff isn't as wanting as other stuff? Just thinkin. I love Tim O'Reilly's Perl-is-so-popular-but-nobody-talks-about-it story in the NerdTV interview (it's free people, check it out). It demonstrates not only his ability to distill trends from lots of noise, but how his company can also go on to become advocates for things that don't get the proportional attention they have coming to them. Anyway, Macs... Yeah. They don't have an O'Reilly conference this year.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Wish I Was There. But Kinda Already Am.
This week is O'Reilly's Web 2.0 conference, and O'Reilly conferences keep getting more and more user friendly. But even cooler is how they keep getting more inclusive about who a user can be! An O'Reilly conference attendee can be somebody who isn't even physically at the conference. An O'Reilly session attendee can be in room A, and still attend the session in room B, by pouring over the 15-way coverage later that night! The way O'Reilly conferences aggregate media, blog, and audio/ video coverage has always been impressive, and it enables you to not have to miss any sessions, whether you're there in person or not. But with Web2con, there's a Socialtext wiki that's definitely adding another plane of experience. For whatever reason (because SocialText is a little less intimidating than Twiki?), it seems like people are contributing more to this wiki than to they have to other O'Reilly conference wikis. In any case, I encourage you to check out the coverage of the Web 2.0 conference via the Socialtext wiki, which includes a collaborative blog, shared session notes, and links to attendee blogs. Plus, duh, check out the normal conference coverage page, too.
My favorite conference notes so far has been at blackrimglasses.com.
tags: web2con, oreilly, business
(original neato photo courtesy x180, on flickr)
This week is O'Reilly's Web 2.0 conference, and O'Reilly conferences keep getting more and more user friendly. But even cooler is how they keep getting more inclusive about who a user can be! An O'Reilly conference attendee can be somebody who isn't even physically at the conference. An O'Reilly session attendee can be in room A, and still attend the session in room B, by pouring over the 15-way coverage later that night! The way O'Reilly conferences aggregate media, blog, and audio/ video coverage has always been impressive, and it enables you to not have to miss any sessions, whether you're there in person or not. But with Web2con, there's a Socialtext wiki that's definitely adding another plane of experience. For whatever reason (because SocialText is a little less intimidating than Twiki?), it seems like people are contributing more to this wiki than to they have to other O'Reilly conference wikis. In any case, I encourage you to check out the coverage of the Web 2.0 conference via the Socialtext wiki, which includes a collaborative blog, shared session notes, and links to attendee blogs. Plus, duh, check out the normal conference coverage page, too.My favorite conference notes so far has been at blackrimglasses.com.
The talk is about long-tail publishing. Long-tail is an annoying meme. I like “powerlaw” and “scale-free networks” much better, but anyhow. Yahoo is launching some publishing ecosystem projects:Ecosystem:
1) Publishers
2) Users
3) Advertisers
4) ProvidersFind, use, share and expand “all human knowledge.” Wow, ambitious much? Couldn’t find everything in the “deep web,” content that people want to monentize. Why would people monentize content? Montentize MEDIA, not content, but I digress.
They moved away from crawling to directed content. Users also share what for-pay content they would like to see in their search results. Directed search though, seems to be getting to a pay for crawl mentality. It’s easy to trick, and that is a bit worrisome, again, I digress.
tags: web2con, oreilly, business
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Worst. CEO Announcement. Ever.
No I did not. No I did not just listen to the entire webcast of the Google and Sun announcement about "teaming up," only to not be able to get anything at all out of it. The only specific thing in their announcement was a mention of a future option to grab the Google Toolbar when you're downloading the Java Runtime Environment from Sun. BFD.
But there were so many headlines like,
Once the presentation (that didn't really say all that much) got finished, a pretty open Q&A got rolling. People asked really direct questions, like "How will you promote OpenOffice exactly?" And "Can you make OpenOffice on the web (like gmail)?" Google and Sun confirmed what we all thought we just witnessed,
No I did not. No I did not just listen to the entire webcast of the Google and Sun announcement about "teaming up," only to not be able to get anything at all out of it. The only specific thing in their announcement was a mention of a future option to grab the Google Toolbar when you're downloading the Java Runtime Environment from Sun. BFD.But there were so many headlines like,
Sun, Google To Collaborate On Software Services PlatformDoesn't that kind of talk get you all excited and curious? See?!?! That's what happened to me. But nowhere in the entire webcast was there any mention of how Google and Sun will enable "further collaboration... on projects like OpenOffice." The whole event was a little lackluster, and Scott McNealy isn't as good at expressing positivity as Jonathan Schwartz. Some highlights:
or
Google, Sun to challenge Office
“what do we do now?”
“i'm supposed to point it out to him?”
“this is a java lamp...it's supposed to represent our partnership.”
“scott looks really, really confused.”
Once the presentation (that didn't really say all that much) got finished, a pretty open Q&A got rolling. People asked really direct questions, like "How will you promote OpenOffice exactly?" And "Can you make OpenOffice on the web (like gmail)?" Google and Sun confirmed what we all thought we just witnessed,"We've not announced a specific thing that we're going to do yet."