PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is released under the GNU General Public License. Its primary goals are to be faster, smaller and less graphically intensive as compared to other discussion boards. PunBB has fewer features than many other discussion boards, but is generally faster and outputs smaller, semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages.
LII Launches Wex
Received an email this morning from my friend Tom Bruce announcing the immeadiate availability of Wex, a collaboratively-edited legal dictionary and encyclopedia built on the MediaWiki platform. Here’s a bit from the Wex FAQ:
What is Wex?
WEX is a collaboratively-edited legal dictionary and encyclopedia. It is intended for a broad audience of people we refer to as “law novices” — which at one time or another describes practically everyone, even law students and lawyers entering new areas of law. No doubt purists will be quick to point out the differences between a dictionary and an encyclopedia. We deliberately blur the distinction, as we are interested in providing objective, useful material in a range of formats.
Tom and the LII crew have seeded Wex with the lot of original content that was developed for the LII’s ‘Law About..’ legal subject area series. This looks like it will be another hit for the LII.
MSFT Memos Point to New Direction
Dave Winer posted the text of a Bill Gates email and a Ray Ozzie memo laying out a broad strategy for changing the course of MSFT. At least we now see why MSFT bought Groove: it is what Gates wants to do with MSFT and they needed the shot in the arm of an outsider (Ozzie) to get things moving. Still there is a lot of danger in trying to stop MSFT and turn it in another direction. For example, a ‘services’ company doesn’t need buildings full of developers building complex systems in near isolation from each other, so there will be a lot of internal resistance to the this new direction.
And what does the ‘product’ look like? Will Windows become a basic OS, controling the physical computer with basic file management and a single app, somne sort of uber browser that open a window to the net and all of the glorious ‘services’ that MSFT will offer? Nice idea, but a hard sell.
Finally, Ray Ozzie’s memo is worth reading in and of itself. It offers up a blue print (or even a manifesto, depending on your POV) for moving forward as the net becomes more disruptive. We are moving toward a time when all of the technologies that have been trotted out over the past 10 years will actually work, but we need to put aside the ‘been there, done that’ attitude that tends to prevade these sorts of announcements. Yes, on a certain level, everything that is in these docs is old news, but only now are we moving to a position where all of this is actually viable.
Gregarius: Web-based Aggie in PHP
Gregarius is a Web-based RSS/RDF/ATOM news aggregator featuring OPML import/export, XHTML/CSS output, and an AJAX-based item tagging system.
Internet Creates Public Figures
Can mention on the net turn an ordinary citizen into a public figure with severely limited abilities to fight libel and defamation lawsuits? According to a Florida judge’s ruling — perhaps the first of its kind in the United States — the answer is yes.In an Oct. 21 ruling, Florida circuit court Judge Karen Cole threw out a defamation case against two TV stations because she deemed the plaintiff — a Jacksonville woman — to be a public figure who had been subject to “substantial” internet debate.
Wired News: Net Chat Anoints Public Figure
Well, I guess this would make me a public figure too…
PDF Doc Creation For Lawyers and Other Pros
ppligent, Inc. Wednesday introduced its APSplit Desktop Edition, a standalone desktop application for preparing PDFs to meet the document-size requirements imposed by courts and other government institutions on electronic filing submissions. APSplit DE is a drag-and-drop desktop application that enables users to deliver large PDF documents in compliance with an institution’s sizing requirements.
Desktop Tool Eases e-filing of Large PDFs
This is aimed right at lawyers who have to convert electronic documents to a standardized format to meet efiling requirements.
PHP/MySQL Managed Web-based Mailing List
web mailing list is a Web-based newsletter mailing list application using PHP and MySQL. Users can subscribe and unsubscribe, and you can create and send newsletters to your email group.
PHPList: LAMP mailing list control
PHPlist is a mailing list and newsletter manager that allows posting via a Web page. It works well when used for announcements, and can handle very large email address lists. Users can sign up to multiple lists, but will only receive a single copy of cross-posted messages. When signing up, users can identify their geographical location, and messages can be targetted to these. You can add place holders in your email that will be replaced with personal details (such as the person’s name). Users can update their own information, and unlike many other mailing list systems, they can change their email address. HTML emails are supported.
Dell Takes a Hit on Bad MoBos
But the motherboard replacement program will account for the bulk of the charge, or about $300 million, he said.The replacements are necessary as some capacitors on some motherboards shipped in its GX270 and GX280 systems failed after a period of months. The failure, which is evidenced by a PC that won’t boot, comes when the capacitors bulge and fail.
Dell Warns of Layoffs, Motherboard Replacements
There was a lengthy discussion on this very topic on teknoids back in September and folks were generally not happy with the situation.
New Personal Aggregator
fyuze is a personal information aggregator that automatically collects information from the internet so you don’t have to. Sign up for an account, tell fyuze what you’re interested in, and you’ll be able to — at a glance — see what’s new on the web every time you log on.