The 6th incarnation of Elmer's blog
Reading Yahoo! 360 through “The Lessons of Lucasfilm’s Habitat”
Good article looking at how Yahoo! 360 is developing and how it seems to be yet another attempt to lock users into a closed world controlled by one corporation or another. I can’t really comment on Yahoo 360 since I haven’t been invited to join, though I’ve beeen using Yahoo for email and such for longer than I can remember.
Understanding the Windows lifecycle policy (for all you IT Pros out there)
“With so many customers relying on IE, it helps to get a solid grasp of the Windows Lifecycle Policy, which at first blush can appear to be a bit cryptic. Fortunately I think I can shed some light on Microsoft’s policy“
OK, so a quick read indicates that MSFT is supporting 6 versions of IE on 8 different versions of Windows. Wow! THat is a bit of a nightmare, even with the deep pockets of MSFT. If you figure in stuff like variations in hardware, net access, other installed software, it just makes support a nightmare on a good day.
Novell users eye Linux for kernel swap – Computerworld
“Two weeks after Novell Inc. released software that lets users run its stack of computing services on either the NetWare or Linux kernel, members of the NetWare faithful cited widely varying plans for migrating their servers to Linux.
Some attendees at the software vendor’s BrainShare user conference here said they’re in no rush to move to SUSE Linux, the distribution of the open-source operating system that Novell acquired in January 2004. But others are starting to dabble with Linux, and some are eager to take the plunge right away.“
Slashdot | Berkeley Grads’ Identity Data Stolen
“Did you get a graduate degree from Berkeley? Or maybe you just applied but didn’t go there? If so, your identity may have been stolen. A laptop was stolen containing names, social security numbers, birthdates, and addresses of grad students, alumni, and applicants. University police suspect that the thief just wanted the laptop, but the irony of California’s mandatory notification law is that the thief may now know they have something even more valuable. Berkeley has set up a website with information on the breach.“
Big Question: Why was all of this info stored on a laptop anyway? It seems to me that it would make a certain amount of sense to not allow data like this to be saved on a laptop in the first place.
John Robb’s Weblog
“The concept is simple. Data is usually locked up in monolithic applications (CRM, ERP, etc.). Application seats are expensive. Training is expensive. Etc. People that need the data often can’t get to it.What if human readable data flows (via RSS) could be generated by these applications? It would allow the development of easy to read weblogs (that republished these RSS flows) that almost everyone in the company would find valuable. The combinations are almost limitless and the flow is completely automated.“
I’ve been recommending this sort of approach to folks for awhile. To me RSS feeds are essentially a by-product of data entry in any db system, just one last statement (open the RSS file and add and entry) tagged on the end of the code that creates or edits the row in the db.
TechWeb | News | Yahoo Launches Search For Nontraditionally Licensed Content
“Yahoo Inc. on Thursday released in beta a search engine that looks for pictures, writings and other creative works that are available for reuse under nontraditional copyright licenses offered by a nonprofit group.
The new online tool searches the web for sites with a Creative Commons license. The San Francisco organization has created a range of protections for authors and artists by replacing the “all rights reserved” of traditional copyright with “some-rights-reserved” alternatives.“
Larry Lessig, the engine behind Creative Commons, reports on the new tool here. This feature lets you use Yahoo! to find works that can be re-used and shared according to the various CC licenses. So, need a bit of graphic, a photo, or some music to spice up your site? This is the search tool to use.
Knoppix Remastered for Phishing Prevention
“Cybersource, an electronic payment services company, has announced a new product called “Coastguard” to help make accessing online banking sites more secure. Coastguard is basically a remastered Knoppix CD that has DNS servers and other settings are automatically configured to use secured bank servers. This is a departure from token-based systems that other companies use.
I like the fact that this company was able to recognize how useful Knoppix is, particularly for this kind of security. Of course, at a $250,000[AUD] price tag, it’s not exactly cheap. For the cost you do get complete access to the remastered CD with the ability to further tweak it, although I think you could probably pay a lot less for someone who knows Knoppix to create a remastered version just for you.“
The deal is the bank buys the master and the hardware for burning copies of the CD. The disc can be customized by the bank. The CDs are distributed to customers who then boot the disc and connect directly to the bank. It certainly would be secure, but imposes a huge support burden I think. Knoppix is cool, but in the hands of civilians it can be a little difficult to use. Now if they have really stripped it down and made it plug-n-play, that would be good. I suspect that we won’t here about this, at the 200K+ price point again.
Bob Barker Gift Endows Animal Rights Law Course (Northwestern University News)
“Bob Barker, host of the Emmy award winning “The Price Is Right” and a longtime proponent of animal welfare, has donated $1 million to the Northwestern University School of Law to endow a course in animal rights law.
The Bob Barker Endowment Fund for the Study of Animal Rights Law will provide students an opportunity to earn course credit. Course topics could include: how humans interact with and use animals; current animal protection laws; species protection; and international wildlife law.
Barker has previously made $1 million gifts to the University of California at Los Angeles, Duke University, Stanford University and Columbia University. It all began with a similar endowment established in his name at Harvard Law School by FemantleMedia, which produces “The Price Is Right.”“
InfoWorld: Yahoo’s free mail service to offer 1GB of storage: March 23, 2005: By : APPLICATIONS : SECURITY
“Yahoo will increase the inbox capacity of its free Web mail service for the third time in the past nine months, now raising storage to 1GB, exceeding Microsoft’s Hotmail and matching Google’s Gmail.Yahoo Mail users all over the world will begin to see the larger inboxes between late April and early May, said Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo’s vice president of communications products.“
NewsForge | Novell’s Brainshare 2005: Day 2
“CEO Jack Messman kicked off Day 2 at Brainshare 2005 with a confident keynote that recounted promises made last year, Novell’s execution of those, and a flurry of new product announcements. If Novell is acting in desperation, as some have suggested of their move to Linux, it doesn’t show itself in their public face. NewsForge also spent some time on the exhibition floor and a lot of time in the press room, where Novell was conducting rapid-fire one-on-one briefings for the media.The announcements included a partnership announcement with JBOSS, Identity Management, the Open Source application ecosystem, a program to validate stacks on Linux, enhancements and support promises for GroupWise, a small business server, and cross-platform management. All them revolve around Linux. All these announcements –and a replay of the keynote — are available here on the Novell web site.“