CJM - Technology, Investing, Digital Media

Black Hat Tax

2008-05-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

Recently been dealing with this too. Its amazing how much time this can consume. This stat seems amazingly high to me.

most consumer Internet sites have an inherent time, resource, and mindshare tax of roughly 25% due to scamming, phishing, hacking, and government requests. And this drainage has gotten worse two years later which is extremely troubling.

Open source office applications --- tipping point..

2006-11-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

Eric Schmidt's tough talk.

Interesting discussion about online alternative to Office... lets see what happens in 2007

Suddenly, a seemingly modest goal of promoting the "casual" use of online office applications has become a tsunami that is about to "sweep aside" the proprietary protocals and formats "promoted by individual companies striving for technical monopoly." (Yes, he's talking about Microsoft.)

Link

“Start each day with a stand-up meeting”

2006-10-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

“Start each day with a stand-up meeting” is one of the rules of Extreme Programming.

Communication among the entire team is the purpose of the stand up meeting. A stand up meeting every morning is used to communicate problems, solutions, and promote team focus. Everyone stands up in a circle to avoid long discussions.

Since we A) avoid meetings and B) don’t work from the same office, we’ve come up with a digital riff on these meetings. In the morning, when we log in to Campfire, we each do an [IN] post that reveals our plan for the day. It’s just a few lines or maybe a paragraph.

Here

Pundits Discuss the Internet's Future

2006-05-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

It's that attention has its own intrinsic value, independent of money. People go on the Web in search of attention; they don't want to give it as much as get it. People judge their own worth by their number of friends (Friendster) or fans (MySpace) or business contacts (LinkedIn). They may tell you that they're seeking business success, but oftentimes they seem to value contact lists in the thousands for their own sake.

While adults worry about privacy, kids seek attention. They post poetry, photos, exaggerated tales of personal exploits, music in order to create an online presence that garners attention.

Link - WSJ

Reclusive Linux founder opens up

2006-05-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

Nice interview with Linus Torvalds

Here

Incredible Machine...

2006-04-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

Click Here

Kevin Schofield - Tour of Microsoft Research, Part II (machine learning)

2005-12-29T12:47:00.000-08:00

Very cool

Some of the things he's passionate about is information overload. You'll get some demos of the kinds of things he's working on to help prioritize tasks and let other people know you're busy.

Build an AJAX application in php in minutes with symfony

2005-11-03T12:13:00.000-08:00

Nice Movie too...

Link

WSJ.com - New Web-based Technology Draws Applications, Investors

2005-11-03T09:35:00.000-08:00

Now his San Mateo, Calif., business has amassed $16 million in funding from venture-capital firms including Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Benchmark Capital, the firm that famously funded eBay Inc. Peter Fenton, an Accel partner, says Ajax "has the chance to change the face of how we look at Web applications" and could boost technology spending by corporations, because Ajax is also being used to develop software for big companies, not just for consumers.

Link

Yahoo Finance Suggestions

2005-11-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

I am a big fan of Yahoo finance... But I would love to see a couple of new things.

Suggestions for the site:

RSS feeds for my portfolio. I would love to have all my recent news as an RSS feed.
Better news feeds. I get a lot of good stuff but I noticed google sends me additional things when I subscribe to the "google alert". Seems like you could compare these and get some better info.
SEC news feeds. Edgar Online is OK.. But Yahoo should really crawl the SEC site and make it really easy to subscribe to appropriate RSS feeds. I would love to know the instant something new comes on the SEC site about a certain stock. This is free information.. We just need to put a better interface on it.
Sorting within my portfolio. We have a table of info. Why not allow sorting? For instance it would be nice to know which stock in my portfolio had the biggest % change today.
An interactive graph like MSN investor has..

Anybody else have any suggestions? Anybody at Yahoo Finance listening??

12 reasons Web 2.0 entrepreneurs aren't using Microsoft's stuff...

2005-11-01T09:27:00.000-08:00

Scoble talks about 12 reasons Web 2.0 entrepreneurs aren’t using Microsoft’s stuff:

Now, why am I telling you this stuff? After all, I’ve just given you a list of perceived competitive advantages for Linux, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and others. Isn’t this yet another example of why Scoble should be fired for being negative on his own company?

No.

See, I don’t want uninformed customers.

Link

Boing Boing: Video of how a tin can is made...

2005-10-31T16:08:00.000-08:00

Very cool..

I live in this world of reading and computers and software.. Its very interesting and enlightening to see physical things being made.

Link
Video Link

WSJ.com - Oracle To Offer Free Version Of Its Database

2005-10-31T11:39:00.000-08:00

"It's basically free to download, free to develop, and free to deploy," Tim Payne, vice president of technology at Oracle, said told Dow Jones Newswires. "It's exactly the same code line as our other versions."

Link

WSJ.com - Microsoft Will Unveil Internet Push

2005-10-30T21:59:00.000-08:00

So Microsoft is holding a briefing in San Francisco Tuesday, at which Mr. Gates and Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Ray Ozzie will discuss the company's response to the trend. Though officials wouldn't comment in advance of the event, people familiar with the company's plans are expecting the men to disclose new plans for combining programs such as Windows and Office with additional features and services that can be accessed over the Internet or corporate networks.

The strategy could speed Microsoft's delivery of technical improvements, a sore point for customers waiting for major upgrades of important programs. They also could affect how Microsoft makes money; the company could charge subscription fees for software services, couple them with advertisements, or even give them away.

Link

WSJ.com - Many Internet Start-Ups Are Telling Venture Capitalists: 'We Don't Need You'

2005-10-30T21:56:00.000-08:00

Many Internet companies attending a Web-business conference here earlier this month described venture money as "almost superfluous," says Jason Pressman, a principal at Shasta Ventures in Menlo Park, Calif. Venture capitalists generally say their money and expertise are still needed to build large-scale businesses, and they don't mind investing a little bit less in companies that have built businesses on the cheap but still want some venture money.

But some entrepreneurs believe the balance of power in Silicon Valley is shifting for at least a subset of Internet-focused start-ups. "There is magic in independence," says Chris MacAskill, co-founder of online-photo site Smugmug Inc., which has no venture funding -- and, according to Mr. MacAskill, doesn't want any.

Link:

Retooling the Entrepreneur

2005-10-27T16:19:00.000-07:00

Joe Kraus, founder of Excite talks about starting up...

I love everything he writes about...

So it isn’t obvious why a guy like Kraus, worth many millions of dollars, is taking up the challenge of company creation instead of playing golf. The answer, he says, boils down to two factors. First, Kraus explains, “I love the relationships that you build with people when you’re in the trenches trying to make something from nothing. The strongest memories I have from Excite revolve around this team of smart people working on a problem, the sense of accomplishment from that shared struggle, and the friendships that evolve.” That’s the familiar explanation.

Link

interesting photos from the last 7 days in FlickrLand...

2005-10-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

Flickr has a new way of ranking interesting photos: interestingness.

Check out a sample.. Pretty good stuff
Link

First look at Xbox 360 (with the MVPs)

2005-10-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

Larry Hryb - First look at Xbox 360 (with the MVPs)

Web 2.0, Community & the Commerce Conundrum

2005-10-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

The promoters of Web 2.0 venerate the amateur and distrust the professional. We see it in their unalloyed praise of Wikipedia, and we see it in their worship of open-source software and myriad other examples of democratic creativity.

Om Link

Behind Artificial Intelligence, a Squadron of Bright Real People

2005-10-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Nice NYT article on A.I.

This leap was possible, in large part, because researchers are moving from an approach that relied principally on logic and rule-based systems to more probability or statistics-oriented software technologies.
...
Until recently, progress in artificial intelligence lagged so far behind computing technology that some in the field talked about an "A.I. winter," after commercial and government funding evaporated in the mid-1980's.

Now there is talk about an A.I. spring among researchers like Sebastian Thrun, the director of the Stanford lab.

Behind Artificial Intelligence, a Squadron of Bright Real People - New York Times

O'Reilly: What Is Web 2.0

2005-10-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

This article is an attempt to clarify just what we mean by Web 2.0.

Link

The coming Web Service Tsunami

2005-09-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

What's MSFT going to do about it?

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: The coming Web Service Tsunami

Friday Fanboy: The Codex Series

2005-09-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

Halo2 Machinima. Very cool.

If you're not sufficiently impressed yet, consider this: My children's favorite film was not made by Disney, but by a dozen Dallas teenagers playing a videogame in one of their parents' basement. By Hollywood standards, the film cost essentially nothing to make and is free to download. It's had 13m viewers so far. There is now a DVD and a soundtrack CD.

Link

WSJ.com - PHP Language Wins Supporters As Tool for Making Web Software

2005-09-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

Andreessen is joining the board of Zend.

"When it comes to the Web and Web applications, Java is not the right language," Mr. Andreessen says.

Java remains useful for building major pieces of software infrastructure, such as financial management or airline-reservation systems, Mr. Andreessen says. But he adds: "PHP is the language to build Web applications and Web sites that people use on a daily basis. PHP is to 2005 what Java was to 1995."

WSJ.com - PHP Language Wins Supporters As Tool for Making Web Software

David Anderson - Writing Agile Software

2005-09-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

Here is a nice channel 9 video on Agile Management.. How to ship software faster. Its about an hour long.

David Anderson - Writing Agile Software

Also David's weblog is here

His book is here. Has anyone read it?