Recently, the department of justice concluded that the 2002 antitrust settlement between the US government and Microsoft has pretty much accomplished what it set out to do: Stop Microsoft from using its OS monopoly to gain monopoly status in other arenas. An 11 page report takes credit for other technology companies doing well namely:

1. The increased competition Microsoft’s Internet Explorer faces from web browsers such as Mozilla’s Firefox, Opera, and Apple’s Safari;
2. The popularity of Apple’s iTunes and Adobe’s Flash for handling multimedia content;
3. The increasing use of web-based services for e-mail and other applications that historically would have been handled by local applications; and
4. The decisions by Dell and Lenovo to offer the option of computers pre-loaded with a Linux operating system rather than Windows

Obviously, Microsoft feels that the consent decree has had a positive consumer oriented effect.  "The judgment "defined clear rules for how Microsoft competes without preordaining winners in the technology marketplace," said Microsoft's Senior VP Brad Smith.

New  York, Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio and Wisconsin all felt Microsoft has lived up to its goals and in some cases surpassed. But in California, D.C., Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Massachusetts all set that Microsoft's grip on the industry is as strong as ever.

Meanwhile, across the pond Microsoft is a half a month away from its EU case verdict. A half a billion dollars hangs in the balance, and one of the judges in the case has announced his retirement on the day the decision is made public.

My Thoughts

Clearly, in both cases big brother is doing a terrible job making me believe they are what's best for the technology sector. The United States is guilty of poor regulation of tax payers dollars leaving hundreds of millions with an inadequate infrastructure for the future of the Internet. More aggravating to the situation is California's clear conflict of interest. With Apple being Located in California, the state would stand to gain considerable wealth should Apple's OS market share topple that of Redmond's.

While I believe that any company found guilty of extending it's monopoly by means of owning one should be punished, the United States government does a horrible job of regulating the technology sector, and I don't believe the EU will do any better. I believe that the EU has so far shown poor judgement and lack of professionalism in the case verses Microsoft, and setting a record shattering fine against Microsoft as well as taking away from them the ability to compete would establish a framework of protectionism in Europe that could do damage in the long run depending on what happens.

I  think the Antitrust officials would better serve the public by dealing with companies like Ticketmaster who continue to be the only way to get tickets, and the NFL who's exclusive deals have seen the likes of horrible TV services like Direct TV stay alive, and lesser football Game franchise like Madden Prosper.

What we need in the technology sector are a set of principles in which all companies must abide by. By establishing a framework of competition, we must look to see the core ingredients of such a thing. Openness, Collaboration, Standards, idiotic software patent abolition (I believe that in some cases a software patent is fine, as long as it accomplishes an idea that is novel, and not just an approach) and other issues, which directly foster competition moving forward.

In the quest to win Advertising 4.0 (Print,TV,Internet,GPS+WLAN) Google is making moves on the chess board like a Russian champ. Their longtime work with BMW is now making progress, with Google and "BMW ConnectedDrive" announcing today their Google Maps Send to Car feature expanding to all customers. The service was previously available only to customers in Germany.  

Google's BMW Connected Drive is only part of the experience users will get from Google. Look for Google to partner with more car manufacturers while Microsoft has been quietly trying to work out the details of it's Windows Automotive strategy. I seriously don't know how long either Google and/or Microsoft have been hip to the idea of advertising with GPS, but I assume at least Google has been on top of it for a while, which would explain the reportedly heavy spending going on with the Google Phone.

As a long time Carputer hobbyist and enthusiast, I'd love to see Google quickly release some form of API. Even more interesting would be an API that took advantage of a car's data port.

I was the first to post on "Pay per visit advertising", and shortly after (the day after), I described how I think Google's business plan will look in detail, including how it will make them a major enterprise player one that could even perhaps rival Microsoft (in fact think Microsoft is in major trouble if they don't force Google out of the 700Mhz bidding), and since that time an amazing amount of things have occurred which not only make the GPhone look like a reality, but also make pay per visit advertising look like a reality. These revaluations that have all occurred in less than a month are both exciting and frightening; because the Internet might the worst hit, and might suffer the most casualties.

Since I first posted on details about this form of advertising in which I have been working on for over a year, there have been patents applied for (most likely not worth the paper written on but who knows) at the USPTO as well as many new "Confirmed-rumors" which paint the GPhone as a cheap but useful Internet device, which is less focused on high end features, but more so cost effective usability seems to be the focus, and as the person who is confirming the rumor says, "Google is aiming GPhone at the 100 dollar laptop."

It's my opinion that Google was largely responsible for the return of advertising dollars to the Internet. Before Google, an advertiser had a better way of targeting and measuring return on investment via TV than they did on the Internet. Google worked like an angel of perfection to bring us the Internet that was free from all of the nasty things that were out there, and at the same time, gave advertisers a platform in which they could execute a huge return on their investment. "They giveth, and they taketh away."

Enter the GPhone. The Internet could be a major looser should the Pay per search advertising model die. There are only so many advertising dollars so I guess this means that the quality of TV will go even more, and less entrepreneurs will risk startups, less VC's will fund them. Advertising dollars will leave TV and internet alike if the GPhone were to catch on, as much  more money is spent in the car, than in front of a computer. Hopefully, this will just create more of a market, and bring new advertisers on, like companies that sell heavy items that don't ship cheaply.

GPS advertising has the ability to do everything the Internet can but better. You can charge not only by business model of pay per visit, you can also use it to charge by banner views, but in a very precise GPS enabled fashion. You can store GPS cookies, then deliver those cookies to the folks you call, the people you call the most, most likely have the most in common with you. Will America give away it's privacy for 100 dollars a month? I think they will.

Taking on Corporate America with the GPhone. I believe Google is building a massive communications platform which will directly attack and possibly very badly wound Microsoft in the OS market, Office Market, as well as communications server market. Once Google is considered a real enterprise player, just about anything can happen from there. Google if you need a good thinker just let me know! I'm always looking for a company that facilitates and provokes future creating thought.

When I saw all of the hoopla surrounding Yahoo!'s latest foray into unified communications, I was hoping to see that this fantastic upgrade would get us the new Vista only client which looked much nicer than just about any communications client I've seen in the past.

This isn't a post meant to complain though, what I'm reading the features I'm seeing are great, in fact, it's hard to complain with much of anything Yahoo! has done lately with its email client, and its hard to complain considering that I'm under an umbrella overlooking the many mountain painted Caribbean Sea with only the finest music, but I doubt it.

The Unified communications multimodal communications evolution is on fire; it's taking place on two fronts. One area is the enterprise, Microsoft and Cisco and many other players, with promises of email mashing up with voice, and one in the consumer place with the likes of Yahoo! Email, Google Email, but more so with clients like Meebo, Orgoo, and many others out there that mash communications. The reason why I point out my disappointment with the Yahoo! WPF messenger is that you have to take the software + services strategy seriously, at least in the long run. You can have all of the most fantastic services on the cloud but you simply have to take advantage of the richness that takes place only inside the computer.

The companies I've listed all have a strong strategy to work with, I'm waiting to learn more about the new Yahoo offering, and I need to start keeping track and recording which players are opening up their communication nodes to let others extend the functionality via other services like twitter.

Will be back Thursday. I might have time for a blog or two while I'm getting sun but I'll be happy if I can just keep up on things. I'll post some pictures on the flip side.

Hasta La Windows Vista

-GS

 I wasn't too happy with the last beta, but that's only because one of my favorite distributions wasn't playing nice with the hardware I through at it. Namely Sax2 has it's old bug from 10.1 where changing the resolution doesn't change the resolution. Not exactly what you expect from a modern operating system. I guess that's because I put it on a GFX Intel card. (Bug #270846)

They say the problem will be fixed in beta 3, so I am anxiously awaiting it. For those of you who are planning on putting this distribution on other hardware, just check out the latest release notes, especially the technical challenges and the Most annoying bugs over at openSUSE News. For those brave souls out there, to the torrents!

• 1 DVD containing OSS and NonOSS software (torrents for: i386, x86_64, ppc)
• 1 CD with a default KDE installation (i386, x86_64, not for ppc)
• 1 CD with a default GNOME installation (i386, x86_64, not for ppc)
• 1 AddOn CD with only NonOSS packages on it (i386 or x86_64, ppc)
• 1 AddOn CD with language packages that are used for extra languages (the DVD contains support for english, french, italian, spanish, german, chinese, japanese, czech, danish, norwegian, khmer, hungarian, polish; the DVD has support for installation in all languages, just extra packages are only on this extra media) (i386, x86_64, ppc)
• DVD/CDs containing the sources corresponding to the media

Let me know what you think. openSUSE remains one of the most advanced Workstation Linux Distos out there, and I love it as much as Ubuntu and maybe I have a little old time loyalty to it that Microsoft can't even touch.

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Facebook--the most talked about social networking site around--is working on it's own advertising bits which will scan each site to learn more about the person and then use that information to deliver relevant advertising. This has the ability to be as effective as targeted as search advertising I think. I've heard a lot lately about how more and more eyeballs are on content sites and less time is spent on search engines as people get more proficient at finding information, they rely less on tools like Google to get them the information they need. Also, by using Facebook (and other social networking sites) users are able to look for things in a viral fashion without using Google's systems. If there is an IPO to watch, this could be the one, I just hope they do it Google style where most of the wealth doesn't go to rich investment bankers.

When Jim Gray was in the middle of solving the problem of what he called E-science, or the process of taking science and putting it on the Internet, he said: "E-science is gathering steam, it may be time to step back and let the smart people do it. "years later Google Sky certainly wasn't the first project to exist with the goal of archiving the sky, but perhaps the project is the finest.  

In a paper written by Jim Gray and his colleges published named "Designing and Mining Multi-Terabyte Astronomy Archives: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey" work began in the late 90's on what was then considered a next generation astronomy digital archive.

Astronomy is a unique science in that there is active collaboration between professional and amateur astronomers. Often, amateur astronomers are the first to see some phenomenon. Most of the tools are designed for professional astronomers, but a public Internet server will provide public access to all the published data.

Jim believed that computer science was at the center of all of the intellectual disciplines, and so he felt most at home there because it gave him the ability to help solve any of the worlds real problems. Jim's professor once said that "There are so many talents in the computing field, Jim has the ability to understand it all, and be good at everything, he can pick a good problem and then invent around it to advance that area of science. It's what was made Jim a novelty among men, he was such a great visionary, a pragmatist, and programmer. There are few that can do all, said his professor.

The researchers at Microsoft Research, John Hopkins University and the Department of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology collaborated on what would be the foundation for creating a massive index of the stars above via a three dimensional representation as seen with the new Google Sky. Jim Gray was perhaps one of the most influential people in modern science, his understanding of databases led to great transactional systems that led to great software like Microsoft Exchange, as well as building the foundations that made Virtual Earth possible and of course he played an integral part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).

<Figure 3>The hierarchical subdivision of spherical triangles, represented as a quad tree. The tree starts out from the triangles defined by an octahedron. The archive will enable astronomers to explore the data interactively. Data access will be aided by multidimensional spatial and attribute indices.

From Designing and Mining Multi-Terabyte Astronomy Archives

Astronomy is about to undergo a major paradigm shift. Data gathering technology is riding Moore's law: data volumes are doubling every 20 months. Data sets are becoming larger, and more homogeneous. For the first time data acquisition and archiving is being designed for online interactive analysis. In a few years it will be much easier to download a detailed sky map or object class catalog, than wait several months to access a telescope. In addition, the online data detail and quality is likely to rival that generated by the typical telescopes.

The purpose of the Archive would be to allow astronomers to explore the data interactively. It would also have the following attributes:

1. Would be multidimensional and spatial
2. Would have the data split among multiple servers allowing parallel, scalable input and output, and parallel data analysis.
3. Hashing techniques allowing efficient clustering
4. Contain pair-wise comparison algorithms

Google Sky (Google Earth)

Many years later, Google unveils a wonder of usability that started with a man who was trying to solve a problem. After using Google Sky for quite some time today, I am simply  amazed at the wonders of modern science. I am so amazed that I'm starting to feel numb to just about any new technology that I witness. To the people at Google who have taken the heavens and put them on my desktop, thanks, Jim would appreciate this much more than I would but you all did a fantastic job.

I was thinking Microsoft would respond to Adobe's Flash HD hoopla with a reminder that if they have their way, Silverlight will not be taken lightly. Tafiti does two great things for Microsoft actually, it also shows that Microsoft hasn't given up on search and is constantly thinking about new ways to offer search.

The best way to describe tafiti is just calling it a cross between Microsoft OneNote, and a web 2.0 search engine. What it begins to show is that by combining online functionality with robust client side data storage and flexibility, you can create a networked application that is built entirely to facilitate online research. I'll use this for a while, and see how I like it. Microsoft must release their "index 2.0" soon or it won't matter how nice the front ends are, their backend is still very far being Google in every area except perhaps images, and that possibly because it's so very difficult to scan images and video effectively even today.

I sent in plenty of suggestions to Microsoft, more than anything because it gave me hope that search might still get more exciting than the plain interfaces we are seeing today. I think I'll run through a few of them here. (keep in mind I've only used the application for about 15 minutes, but first impressions are often the ones you want to keep)

1. Make the application themeable. We need a white professional looking theme.

2. Add more options

3. Make the application more responsive, and less resource hungry.

4. Add Endless scroll please!

5. Integrate with Skydrive so that I can mobilize my research.

6. Refine the design, make a couple more videos showing off the strengths of the tool.

7. Don't stop there, start using some available research tools out there, what can you learn from them?

8. How else can we visualize bookmarking? Bust some 3d goodness in her.

9. Did I mention endless scroll?

 Image Search for Chicago in tafiti

Real Networks has announced that MTV and Verizon will all join forces to bring the us combined content and connectivity that only they could offer whether we are on the road, in the car, or in our home. If you want the honest to geek truth, Apple's iTunes + iPod hasn't been the best combination in quite some time.

For owners of Sonos Digital Music Distribution Systems who also subscribe to Rhapsody, the combination of Real Networks + MTV + Verizon will improve the best experience already around. With an iPod and iTunes, I can only control one zone of music, and I can only listen to music I purchase. The iPod is the best experience for people who don't like music that much.

If Verizon and MTV add to this software+service+Hardware ecosystem instead of trying to replicate it, then I can only tell you what a growing number of other people are finding out, iTunes and iPod are not the best combination around anymore, Sonos is where it's at. When people come over to my house and see my Sonos system, their jaws drop and they have no idea how I can control the sound coming out of rock speakers by my pool, by a small overgrown looking wireless iPod inspired device. I have access to 3.5 millions songs laid out in a fashion like no other on my Sonos handheld wireless controller and in case you didn't hear, you can get a Sonos system via a growing number of Best Buy stores, although the rumor is that Sonos will keep the professional CE market happy with a pro line and might announce it at this years CEDIA. Recently, Sonos added the ability to stream Sirius Radio to all zones in the home, all controlled via the same very cool handheld player. Did I forget that owners of Sonos can control Pandora accounts right from the palm of their hands? This isn't some glued on software either it's all written from the ground up to run on Sonos. Fans of music are starting to expect more from their device than the vision that creative had in the mid-90's and that Apple perfected.

With MTV joining forces with Rhapsody and Verizon, I'm starting to wonder whether Sonos will add Video distribution to it's already super cool device lineup. (Not that I really care for MTV but millions of young users do)

For those people who are saying that Microsoft abandoned MTV, it's only a half truth. Microsoft accomplished what it set out to do, get these other stores using their DRM by making them think of Microsoft as a partner, so that they would only have to concentrate on one competitor. It's unfortunate that they didn't help blossom the scenario based approach to a digital lifestyle solutions that so many professional audio startup have had, because now their ecosystem is starting to grow real wings.

Prediction: Apple will have Digital Music Distribution baked into it's iPod+Apple TV within 5 years or it will be obsolete.

First of all, this is great news.  Adobe has laid it out on the table, and told Microsoft to take its toys and go home before Silverlight has grown any wings. So I was wondering when this was going to happen. Microsoft had to know that Adobe, Google, Apple, and a slew of online artist didn't want to play with Silverlight.  

With Adobe responding to Microsoft's Silverlight HD playback ability, I wonder what else Microsoft will announce if anything. I think of Silverlight more like I do Shockwave, if nothing else for it's ability to do very complex things along with their slew of IDE workings. In this beta release let's look at what Tinic Uro at Adobe Sanfran lays down for us.

• A file format parser implementing parts of ISO 14496-12. In terms you might understand this means a very limited sub set of MPEG-4, 3GP and QuickTime movie support.
• Support for the 3GPP timed text specification 3GPP TS 26.245. Essentially this is a standardized subtitle format within 3GP files.
• Partial parsing support for the 'ilst' atom which is the ID3 equivalent iTunes uses to store meta data. This really more a de-facto standard which came through the ubiquity of iTunes, there is no official documentation on the format. Look here for an incomplete list of supported tags iTunes does use.
• A software based H.264 codec with the ability to decode Base, Mainline and High profiles. This is also an ISO standard with the identifier being ISO 14496-10.
• An AAC decoder supporting AAC Main, AAC LC and SBR (also known as HE-AAC). The corresponding ISO specification is ISO 14496-3.

Yeah, many of the video's you already have will plug right into the Flash player and Adobe gets raw support for Sony Blue Ray. Telecoms have to be urinating bricks right now. Well, I don't think there is a huge market to download Blue Ray or any HD movies over the web right now, outside a few areas with high download speeds.

This news combined with Adobe and Mozilla teaming up on scripting and I think you have a nice battle forming online for rich media. Microsoft still does have a better encoder but I don't think the definition of encoder is quality alone, like Tinic Uro points out, penetration goes a long way. I still think Adobe would have been better off wrapping flash in RSS support which in case they haven't noticed is the real standard, not some half baked undocumented iTunes lock in. One thing Macromedia did to get Flash where it is today is not to extend it's flash format into other areas of competition. I don't understand quite all of the ramifications yet so I'll have to read some more later tonight.

Did someone relieve themselves in Evan Blass' coffee today? After reading Evan's new Engadget article I'm almost positive that in a year or so we won't have any being called Microsoft shills, we will just have Vista and XP shills flaming up each other and an occasional Macvertisement who gets in the way.

For an article that reads like, "Redmond, go Pound Dirt (man I'm loving that saying)" and when you are done, come back and let my readers tell you how to make your operating system, Evan doesn't disclose any new useful information that I picked up on besides the usual bit about Vista being a late and ugly date. Well it's not really that bad but close. I can't truly fault Evan, I wanted to write much worse than what I wrote when I spent the best part of my evening mopping up after an apparently dangerous optional Nvidia driver from Windows Update that decided I didn't need to boot Vista anymore.Chris Pirillo is talking about influential defections en mass but remember: whether influential users are using Vista or not doesn't really matter. People who like Vista don't have two round ones to show up to a convention running it these days anyhow. What matters is what can Microsoft do to convince it's corporate partners that Vista is what's right for them.

There are more closet Microsoft shills out there than Mac customers these days. We talk more about the lack of a Gdrive, than a solid free SkyDrive release. Some people claim to distrust Microsoft so much that they would rather be seen with Michael Vick at a dog pound than own a Microsoft Passport ID. I really do want this conversation to go somewhere though.  

What we have here is failure to communicate! Microsoft if any of you decision makers are reading this, I think you all need to get a focus group to analyze what your innovators are doing with your OS and compare that to what your users are asking from you. You don't have the luxury of getting a good review unless your product is excellent. Read the improvement suggestions from the Engadget comments (if you can sift through the regurgitated has been 40 something's Macvertizements) read from the Channel 9 forums, listen to your customers and keep showing results with quality upgrades to Vista.

After all, Evan is right, all I have to show for my two Vista Ultimate purchases is a screen background I never use (other than to show people when they come check out my office just to hear them go, "Nice Monitor!" ...and a Bitlocker tool which doesn't help a whole lot to justify at what price you sold me Vista Ultimate.

Beyond that, I say--for the most part--Vista is a fine OS so far and I hope you keep it up, I hope Vista only gets better. But don't get me wrong, I also hope OSX gets better, I hope the new Google flavored Semantic Web Jr. keeps getting better, I hope Ray Ozzie's evolution of Clippy gets better, I hope Linux gets better. Did I mention Linux?

Phillipp Lenssen over at Google Blogscoped has blogged up some information an internal leaked Youtube video that was done by an employee or group of employees. The video was pulled by Google because it was most likely sensitive to Google's online storage strategy moving forward (or lack of moving forward.)

Update: As Ludwik points out in the comments, a part of the song says, “I’ve been ready to launch my product since 2002 ... At least round here 5 years ain’t so long overdue.” During that last bit of the lyrics, the icon of Google’s internal Gdrive (aka Platypus) tool is displayed, suggesting that perhaps Gdrive has been in development for that time. (Note Platypus is an existing internal tool; we don’t know whether it was ever intended for public release. The lyrics may also be simply a hoax.)

I previously have blogged that I didn't think Google would release a generic free storage solution simply because they are prioritizing projects based on cost effective analytics.

What I mean by that is, after all of the world searches, and after all of the world watches Youtube and after all of the other services which are about to start becoming more popular, perhaps Google is waiting for Microsoft to stick it's online storage neck out to millions of user's who gobble it up only to realize it has limited advertiser appeal.

Why you say? Because when you deal with online storage you usually just:

1. Copy

2. Paste

3. Minimize

4. Move on

One last thought, I think more importance is sitting on the 700Mhz auction than anyone is speculating. Gdrive might get released if Google hits internal targets on spectrum for instance. Also, we don't know how ambitious Google's phone plans are either. I previously blogged about what I think there plans will be with Gphone and then a few weeks later there was a patent filed on pretty much what I was talking about. Only time will tell.

Well, maybe. Skype is very close to DNS is architecture. Most peer to peer networks rely on some type of server or at least contain some other form of helper for the normal clients. This makes sense for many reasons. So I was going to write this post last night on how I think this might be a DOS attack and it turns out that it really might be a DOS attack. (maybe) George Ou security news analyst for ZDNET recently said that the services has been up at times but then doesn't last. He points out that Marchuk is posting the following message on the full disclosure mailing list.    

Valley Marchuk: On Security.rub forum an exploit code was published by an anonymous user.  Reportedly it must have caused Skype massive disconnections today.

The PoC uses standard Skype client to call to a specific number. This call causes denial of service of current Skype server and forces Skype to reconnect to another server. The new server also “freezes” and so on … the entire network.

 Of Course Chief Skyper Villu Arak clearly does not agree this is the problem. (this is what gets me thinking on my own again, more clues to glue you to the situation) I actually think it's just a case of a user releasing exploit code when he can easily get attention doing so, but I could be wrong.

As we continue to work hard at resolving the problem, we wanted to dispel some of the concerns that you may have. The Skype system has not crashed or been victim of a cyber attack. We love our customers too much to let that happen. This problem occurred because of a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software.

When Villu talks about an inefficiency in its software, that's good news I believe. The reason I say that is they are probably not lying and they are dong more about it than let's say FEMA would. There is a problem with what he says though. If there is an deficiency in their network algorithm surely the problem would had surfaced long ago. I don't think my boycott is of AT&T is going very well so I'm thinking perhaps there must be something there hidden in the sauce of what's going on here. Only time will tell, unless it's a problem with Xbox 360's that is.

One last thing I want to note, I actually believe that this will all come down to be some inadequate Byzantine fault tolerance type subroutine. Byzantine fault tolerance is basically code to minimize a fault that occurs during the executing of an algorithm by a distributed system. Te output of one function is the input of another and then you have small round-off procedures (Maximum Transmission Unit perhaps) which can cause errors. These errors are occur during estimation of data or distribution. If the second function were fed into a third the problem could grow even larger until the values are worthless or in this case, very dangerous to the health of the network.

So is this a case of Dynamic Denial of Service (Clients attacking themselves with their new Wal*Mart phones? Or A case of Transmission Transmutation. We will know soon. You'll be able to call folks and find out more.

Lessons Learned? monocultures, especially monocultures that rely on many other client, are not good monocultures for communication sometimes. I hope it goes back up and they find AT&T was actually behind it all and everyone gets caught red headed. :) Enough with the AT&T hate. (at least until after my morning coffee)

RSS might be widely considered to be as important as HTML or even the concept of a networked computer sometime in the near future. Recent developments on the Internet are painting a landscape filled with RSS at all popular services which enable netizen socialization. Microsoft and other large vendors always said that XML would be the future for applications that talked to each other cross domain, but it wasn't until the last year that it's become obvious (at least to me) that RSS will be the glue which ties everything together. These days the protocol is being used as the glue which mashes up different content in new useful ways.

Microsoft did it's typical "embrace and extend," with Simple Sharing Extensions for RSS & OPML. The goal of these extensions is to define criteria to use RSS in loosely coupled applications. Microsoft realized that it needed to embrace RSS, as it's perhaps the only technology more highly regarded to developers of web applications than AJAX.

I'll take it a little bit further than this. I truly believe that within 5 years, RSS will be recognized as one of the most important achievements for the Internet. Any application out there that is loved in any small way only has to embrace and open it's data with RSS and it's popularity rises through the roof. Recently Dave Winer noticed RSS feeds being exposed in Facebook. Although there is no announcement that it would expose it's data via RSS after heavy criticism due to it's previously closed nature, the company looks to be making good to qualm any concerns.

RSS exposure allows developers to pull useful data and metadata from Facebook and mash it into their own applications. A web application that is walled in, is only as good as a fish out of water in the highly competitive "Web 2.0." There is still some doubt in the community, but from what I'm hearing, everyone is really digging it.

Most people are excited about mashing twitter and Facebook up. I'm looking forward to trying to think of some great ideas so I can contribute. One idea I had with Facebook (now that it will expose items via RSS) is a Vista Sideshow Gadget that shows my CBS Sportsline Fantasy Football scores on a picture frame in my living room. CBS recently created a new Facebook application that allows you to view your score via the Facebook page, and I'm thinking that if it gets RSS'ed then my score will be exposed to what ever parameters I want to now apply to it.

I'll continue to watch RSS transform the Internet with great appreciation and excitement, as I know the Internet is a much better place because of its presence.

(Opinion Piece) How many times can one company mess up completely (Cnet) and still get a free lunch? I've said it multiple times before, BOYCOTT AT&T, these people need a real proverbial slap on the face from consumers that let them know we are tired of putting up with their BS. Enough! Spy on us, you are going to be broke! Don't apologize to us, apologize to your damn shareholders and your employees when they get laid off.

Censorship? For Political reasons?!?!?! That should be illegal! Spying on Americans? Where the hell do you think you are Shanghai? Enough!

Man, what a day. My PC would not turn on and I had no idea why. My wife is sitting next to me with an employment offer that she needs signed digitized and emailed and my (our) computer is off in Windows Update Hell land. I've done plenty of tech support in my life, so I guess it shouldn't have taken me so long to figure out, but it seems that one happy little "Optional" Update from Microsoft killed my OS.  

I'm usually not the person to throw Microsoft on the burning stake (well, maybe if they deserve it! *gets some gas*) but this really got under my skin. I really take updating seriously. A good example is the recent KB patches floating around. I've not even touched them because they are not security updates. I figure that the most safe thing to do, is sacrifice the performance until the patches get piped down through Windows Update.

I couldn't help but seeing the Nvidia Driver sitting in there over and over when what I'm looking for is the performance updates and eventually I caved in and installed it. Worst mistake! Optional means beta it turns out. Why else would a driver update be optional?

I just sat there looking at the Windows Vista Black, "Lack of a boot screen." Just a black screen with zero useful information! Your monitor is getting video yes, but you are not getting anything. If an update hits Microsoft Update, you would think that it is tested beyond a shadow of a doubt to work with your hardware profile (which I've shared with Microsoft). I tried various tests to eliminate everything as the root cause in a methodically suspicious fashion and I should have jumped directly to my suspicion at once that the NVIDIA driver update was the cause for my problem. As an owner of not one but two copies of Windows Vista Ultimate, and a copy of Office Ultimate 2007, I feel a little bit pissed off and I feel like I want the last 4+ hours back.

I just read Matt Asay's highly theoretical essay on open source economics where he says that there is little hope that Mozilla will make any software that is considered a true public good of any note. For the sake of the people reading this, I'm going to try to respond as myself, instead of trying to be Socrates here.

First of all, I think deciding whether or not Firefox is considered a public good would be highly theoretical work especially if you consider the public the entire world, and doesn't make sense to even argue because I think everyone agrees that Mozilla comes far enough down the right path with the publics interest squarely and securely placed as its primary focus for all of its projects.

Mozilla is not a traditional software company. We are a global community and public benefit organization dedicated to improving the Internet experience for people everywhere.

We work in the open through a highly disciplined, transparent and cooperative process to coordinate the development and marketing of Mozilla technologies and products as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Corporation has no outside shareholders. The Mozilla Foundation is a California non-profit corporation exempt from federal income tax under IRC 501(c)3.

This unique structure enables Mozilla to financially support and cultivate competitive, viable community innovation. The result is great products built by passionate people -- and better choices for everyone.

Not only does Mozilla do this, but they also have a corporate arm which helps them make there mission a success. Then of course you do say "of note" so I'm not sure whether your intention is to examine a theoretical topic or to say that Mozilla doesn't make anything that is noteworthy. If we had the time, we could spend hours debating whether or not the fish in the sea are a public good!

Why do people use Firefox or Ubuntu or any other piece of software over another type of software that is also open source? Because the influential consumers know without a shadow of a doubt that the primary focus of such projects is increasing the public benefit and if they spend their time and skill helping out the said project the ship is not going to change course most likely throughout the entire projects life, the primary and solitary focus will remain the same.

Matt does bring up some good points, which I don't think really support his primary point, basically he is saying that money helps feed families and that it gets more developers working on a project, but their involvement in Linux is primarily focused on the Linux Server Enterprise pieces of Linux, and it takes people who are looking out for the benefit of the public to make Linux more friendly for public consumption. Another point he makes which I supposed you can not argue with is the fact that capitalist pigs are in a much better place to help out the public interest than those without the resources to help out (Bill Gates for instance). Whether or not some families are fed is beyond the scope of argument of public good.

I think I understand what you are saying but I'm not sure whether this is just an inflammatory topic or whether or not you had some great ideas for improvement over at the Mozilla foundation.

Some the the world's most highly skilled programmer's would not spend their own time working on something that will benefit a few. How do you think the capitalist pigs would have treated RSS if they would have wrangled control from Dave Winer 5 years ago? Most likely, it would be another flop. Consumers adopted the technology because they knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was intended for them, and that is what got all of the money following it. The money wants to attach itself to the users, but the user's want to attach themselves to things which are primarily focused on what matters to them the most, their own interests. In the end, I think mixed source is the answer to the future, the open source projects that are intended solely for the consumer interests not only provide excellent public goods (whether Firefox is a true public good is debatable, but to say it is of not noteworthy is to loose credibility) but they also keep the capitalist pigs in check which in the end provides yet more public good.

I smell blood, and the tears of joy and loss, in the almost autumn air this time of the year usually. I am involved in two fantasy football leagues that I started about 5 years ago. One of the things that is good about fantasy football is that once a year it brings back together those people in your life which you start drifting away from--for better or worse. :)

And so I wanted to pass along a tip to anyone else out there who is into fantasy football, I'm going on my third year using a product called Draft Advisor which will actually let you put your scoring system into it and then will help you through the entire draft. I usually know who I want in the first 5 rounds without blinking, but it's the 7 rounds that follow where a math engine running along side you on your laptop can come in handy. I also am a big fan of the various fantasy football blogs and podcasts out there. My favorite online service is www.fleaflicker.com the best football site for fantasy folk. Anyone have any cool links?

To the joys of blogging, and many more years of blogging to everyone! I can only hope there will be nothing but many more good things to blog about. In two years, I think I've come a long way. I've been a "Geek" over half of my life, I remember playing with Commodore and Apple's as a kid, I remember breaking them as time went on, and I remember learning how to fix them before my parents found out.

I remember writing my first program, designing my first web site, writing my first blog post. I remember the joys of being a part of NeverWinterNights Online gaming service, and Ultima Online (Richard Garriot is releasing his first Post Ultima Game very soon) right from their beginnings and now these types of worlds have become an alternate fabric of our cultures where it doesn't matter what race creed or religion are, you are accepted as well, and orc or a freakin hobbit. =)

This planet wouldn't be such a great place without all of you people who eat, drink, and breath technology. The only thing I regret is being so far away from all of the action. I hope my station here serves you well, continues to entertain you, inform you, and challenge you to think beyond what you are hearing people say.