Department of Justice advises FCC to investigate Verizon's discriminiatory practices regarding DSL installations for competitors. [from Derek at thescoop.org]
Mac OS X supports a two-button mouse. What's the big deal here? You can use two-button mice with Mac OS 9 as long as you have third-party software installed to support it. This is not news.
Hee-hee! I just installed wpoison, a CGI that generates fake email addresses that get picked up by the spambots when they scrape your site. I went one step further and created two files called sex.html and porn.html, which redirect to copies of the wpoison CGI which have been renamed sex.cgi and porn.cgi. Die, spammers, die!
Interesting.
The ultimate monitor. I wonder how good it actually is?
Jeffrey Veen: The Matrix Integration Architecture for the Masses
NY Times: Lessons in Spam: A Nordstrom E-Mail Goes Astray. Here's a tip. In order to prevent these kinds of embarassing mistakes, it helps if you don't send the spam [ahem, targeted email] in the first place.
GeekPress: Scamming Google
NY Times: Web Merchants Make Good on Hype. A generic article talking about how ecommerce sites are getting easier to use.
With all the recent hype surrounding the Playstation 2 release, readers may want to read this Nintendo Gamecube vs. PlayStation 2 piece. There are also rumours about Sega and Nintendo forming a joint company.
FaceGenerator [IE-only] is an interesting DHTML-based site with many uses. I can definitely see it be used by police departments and dermatologists. Notice how the designer chose not to use Flash.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Oracle's Larry Ellison.
Jeez, I didn't do a damn thing this weekend. But, you know what? I feel great. Sometimes you have to just relax and do nothing. Correction, I did do something this weekend: I watched about a half dozen movies and read a book from cover to cover. Ahhhhhh....
Finally! Salon has published the article that sums up my feelings about why voting for Nader would be a bad idea.
Poli-Babble: It's becoming pretty clear to me that I'm likely going to vote for Gore next month, but I fear that Bush will ultimately win. I look at it this way: I'd prefer Gore to be our next President, as I think he'd be the best choice for the country as a whole, but I also recognize the fact that I would likely benefit more from Bush than I would Gore considering my income level, tax bracket, and monetary investments. For me, it's a conscious decision I need to make: Do I vote for the candidate who I think is best for the country and economy, or the candidate who I think is best for me?
Salon on Mac OS X:
Jakob Nielsen on the usability of Flash.
Salon also has a long article about how the mainstream press is not being entirely fair in their reporting of Gore's campaign, complete with solid examples.
Though I regularly point to Salon articles because they are some of the best online, I'm incredibly disappointed that they've started to use javascript pop-up ads. I suppose this means that I need to start pointing to their "print" versions, in protest.
Michael Moore: Is George W. Bush Illiterate?
PythonLabs Team Moves to Digital Creations
This Salon article about how eBay sellers are getting squeezed out is interesting, yet I feel no pity for these people who thought they could rely exclusively on eBay for their income. It's clear now that eBay cares more about their stock price and their exclusive deals with other companies than they care about the people who made eBay what is today. Perhaps this is an opportunity for one of the other auction services to snag away some of these digruntled eBay sellers.
The Woman George W. Bush Never Married
What happens when you take amateur gay pornographic pictures, mask out the people, and then critique the interior design of the rooms? You get Obscene Interiors. [NY Times]
Software QA and Testing Resource Center
ESA Software Engineering Standards (from 1991!)
Microsoft gets hacked. A scathing report about how it was done.
IEEE: The path to open-source systems
Here is an excellent dialogue between some lead Eazel UI designers/developers and Linux.com. Fascinating!
Eazel: Testing Nautilus. [Nautilus is the upcoming commercial version of the GNOME 1.4 Desktop/Manager]
Joining the GNOME Project
SunWorld: The return of BSD
MSDN: Official Guidelines for User Interface Developers and Designers [A reader reports that this site doesn't work in IE 3.x for WinCE. Hmmmm....]
Sun: Java Look and Feel Guidelines
Linux Journal: The U.S. Software Industry and Software Quality: Another Detroit in the Making?
Multiple Web personalities skew registration numbers. Of course.
Next month, Forrester is coming out with some rankings of Content Management Systems. I can't wait!
A short article about Microsoft's Tahoe Server, which bills itself as a Document Management System.
This afternoon, my office building burnt down. No, not really, but it could have! Sometime around 4:00 PM, we heard lots of sirens outside, but this being New York City, we ignored them and continued to work. Ten minutes later, a coworker coming back from a late lunch called upstairs on her cell phone reporting that there was a fire on the 6th floor (we're on the 10th). We quickly decided to evacuate, despite no one telling us to, only to find about 200+ people on the sidewalk watching the firemen work. I recognized many of the employees from Vault.com, which is in our building on the 5th and 12th floors. Since the firemen wouldn't let us back into the building until it was "safe" we killed some time at the Barnes and Noble on the corner, and then relocated the office to a pool hall for a couple hours. The company was even cool enough to pick up the tab! How's that for a hip employer? Anyway, it was an interesting afternoon, to say the least.
Interesting People: Esther Dyson wonders about Interactive Coffee Cups
The Nareau Project is now being hosted at MozDev.org, a web site that hosts Mozilla developer communities and projects.
Sweet! Ohio State University has an Open Source Club. How cool is that?
Sun is moving towards open sourcing Java. Hasn't this been common knowledge for some time? Sure, it's not official, but given Sun's move to open source Star Office, wouldn't Java be their next step?
From the cms-list comes this article from australia.internet.com about Vignette Storyserver. The most interesting thing is the reader comments, in which someone from australia.internet.com says that all the pro-Vignette "anonymous" comments came from people with IP numbers matching Vignette.com.
My old friend and photojournalist J. Carl Ganter emailed me about his new project called "With These Hands" which is about the farmers of Northern Michigan who struggle to make ends meet. I highly recommend it. [High-bandwidth]
Finally! Salon has published the article that sums up most of my feelings about why George W. Bush would be a horrible president.
Ajuba Solutions acquired by Interwoven
For the first time, Microsoft has directly targeted Linux in their print advertising. [See it here.]
Eric S. Raymond's Open Letter to Hewlett-Packard.
Die, spammers, die!
Requirements Elicitation in Open-Source Programs
Are you a dot-com lay-off? CollabNet (my employer) is hiring, for both the New York City and San Francisco locations. (The real reason I'm hawking this here is the new referral plan our HR people just put in place.) Feel free to send in your resume. From experience, I can say that CollabNet only hires very smart and accomplished people. The working conditions are excellent. Both offices are slated to move into new space(s) within weeks. For more about CollabNet's culture, read this Salon article. And you get to work with some really cool people.
World Championship Punkin Chunkin (pumpkin tossing)
FoRK: A huge list of articles and resources about Open Source.
"Hi, my name is Cam." Hee-hee!
A description and explanation of the IT standards at ArsDigita. "No dependence on Microsoft products."
K10K finally posted my desktop to their Designer's Desktops section called "On Display". Username "cameron".
ZDNet: Content management will be king at Internet World
Marketing schmuck: Hey, our product sucks ass, but we want to impress the opinion-makers of our competition. I know, let's bribe them. [via Brian Carnell]
People who take cheap shots at others are only proving to the world that they have no respect for others.
07/14/97: "Basically, Winer's whinings come down to a frustrated blow-hard spewing his opinions about anything." Hmmm, interesting opinion.
eCompanyNow: "Here is the dirty little secret of the Web world: Much of the pricey stuff, whether content management systems or search engines or commerce servers, is simply not ready for prime time."
Wow. I've always known that sleazy journalism was abundant in our mainstream press, but this really takes the cake.
Back in January, I complained pretty loudly about the new site design of NewMedia.com, and went on to say that perhaps NewMedia.com was on their way to extinction. I guess I was right, since NewMedia.com just closed its doors. [Thanks, Ross Olson, for the link.]
Must Read: Trouble in Paradise: Problems Facing the Usability Community
Regular readers know that I'm not much of a sports fan, which is why you rarely ever see sports-related links or commentary here on CamWorld. Yet, the upcoming Subway Series here in New York will surely be an interesting study in group dynamics. On the subway to work, I watch the Yankees fans argue with the Mets fans. On the streets of New York City, I see Mets fans argue with Yankees fans about who is going to win. Walking home to my apartment in Brooklyn, I listen as Yankees fans and Mets fans yell very loudly at each other from their fourth-floor windows and their brownstone stoops. And I think about the amount of unnecessary tension that is created, and I wonder about the worst-case scenario. Are there going to be silly riots after one of the teams loses? Is it going to be as bad as the Central Park atrocities during the Puerto Rican Day Parade last summer?
The Microsoft Crash Gallery. [via Captain Cursor]
Advogato: Is open source alone enough to help the third world?
adobe.com domain hijacked.
I thought so! There are several domains I've been trying to register that have been expired for some time.
Death of a dot-com. Expect to hear this story again and again as dot-coms with bad ideas and bad revenue models run out of money.
IBM Developerworks: The User Experience: The iceberg analogy of usability
Linux.com: Software Development in the New Millennium: Preventing Gales of Derisive Laughter
Boo!
I want.
A visual vocabulary for describing information architecture and interaction design
www.engrish.com
Here is an interesting compilation of links and opinion about the "character assassination" of Al Gore by the Republican National Committee and the mainstream press.
Maybe it's me, but this article about the web and Canada(?) by Joe Clark just doesn't make any sense. A few paragraphs into it and my mind was going "blah blah blah..." instead of trying to understand what the heck he is talking about. Hmmm...
I'm not surprised by this story about Bell Atlantic, ahem Verizon, playing unfairly. They are the worst company I have ever had to deal with, not only for a POTS line but for DSL as well. Regular readers are aware of my contempt for Verizon and the hell they've put Damien and I through in getting the DSL line we ordered in April. It's already the middle of October and we still don't have the DSL we ordered. A close analysis of the situation points the blame to Verizon every single time.
jCVS is a CVS client package written entirely in Java.
Should New York City's Metrocard system be open sourced? Interesting!
Wow, this guy simply doesn't understand open source software. Clueless.
The Anatomy of File Download Spyware
Whoo! Friday the 13th, one of my favorite days of the year since I was born on a Friday the 13th (April).
Linux.com: Okay, I admit it: I invented Open Source
Roger Ebert on The Exorcist.
"With open source, you start to lose that control and won't make leaps with the technology," said Tom Sauer, manager of broadband systems, professional services at RealNetworks. Hmm, this from the company that makes one of the worst pieces of software ever created. Is RealNetworks worried about an Open Source competitor in the streaming media marketplace?
I've been terribly sick since last weekend. This week consisted of four days of gut-bending pain that moved from my stomach to my back. Initially, I thought it was the stomach flu, but when my fever broke on Sunday and the pain persisted I realized it was something else. Yesterday, I went to the doctor where they put me through many, many tests that I don't care to describe. My doctor's first guess was that I was passing a kidney stone, but x-rays disproved that. A second physical exam turned up nothing, as well. After much head-scratching, they gave me a diagnosis of "possible Pancreatitis." My doctor prescribed some wonderful painkillers, and all seems to be well. At least I can't feel anything. Next week, I'm having a sonogram done so that they can make sure it's not something like an ulcer or something that can't be detected with an x-ray.
Genehack (October 11) has an excellent rant/story about Powerpoint and using it teaching situations.
George W. Bush warned us about this new threat in the presidential debate on Wednesday. Silly. This man wants to be president? More from Jon Katz.
Holy crap! Kid A from RadioHead kicks ass.
Note: Today is the last day you can register to vote (at least in New York) for the [U.S.] elections next month.
"According to Corel's Oct. 2 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has the rights to port Microsoft's new .NET Internet software architecture to the Linux operating system."
I recently opened an E*Trade account so that I can manage and invest my money better. It beats keeping it in some checking or savings account. There are also a few undervalued companies who I desperately want to invest in. Long term, folks, long term.
LinuxNews.com: Interview with Mozilla.org's Mitchell Baker.
Sun released the source code for Star Office today. You can download it from openoffice.org (the site was slashdotted and is experiencing some extremely heavy traffic). The full openoffice.org site should be back up and running soon.
Upside: Learning the Ways of Mozilla
Humorous poster about the user interface atrocities of Apple's Quicktime software and Mac OS X.
O'Reilly: Seven Golden Rules for Building Community
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, such bullshit. [via Brian Carnell via Slashdot]
Poop Pals are little furry stuffed animals that excrete jelly beans when you squeeze them. It's true, you can sell anything on the Internet.
I hate marketing companies. This is such a pathetic gimmick.
The Exorcist, scene-by-scene.
Society For Future Husbands of Britney Spears
Doc Searls posts an Open Letter to Meg Whitman, about eBay putting ads on their auction pages. It reminds me of my rant about movie theaters putting ads before movies.
Another excellent article in the Mac OS X series from ArsTechnica.
CloneJesus.com: The Second Coming Project
Interesting. My old co-worker from my college newspaper, Brian Carnell, now has a weblog. Brian is one of the smartest people I have ever met.
The Nation: Why Dubya Can't Read
Slashdot: Is The Virtual Community A Myth?
Brian Reid documented his ICANN vote procedure, pointing out some interesting things.
A large collection of stories about Computer Stupidities.
opensecrets.org is a site that tracks money in American politics, specifically election.
In Praise of Sloppy HTML. Hmmmm...
An excellent article in Salon about how computer software is getting too smart for our own good.
MSDN: Why Great Technologies Don't Make Great Products
I'm looking for Theater recommendations for New York. Send me your best/worst recommendations.
Apple can't be doing that bad. They're hiring a Sushi Chef.
Robert X. Cringely weighs in on Apple's recent stock plunge.
Obviously, I've been very busy or there would be more regular updates. Things should resume to normal in a week or so.
The Information Systems Journal is looking for papers on Open Source Software.
An interesting opinion over on Advogato about scripting languages.
I've started using BBEdit 6.0, upgraded from BBEdit 5.1.1. So far, I like it. It's a bit slower upon launch, though. The new color syntax for HTML is great, but will take a while to get used to. In 5.1.1, tags, attributes, and values all were the same color. In v 6.0, the tag and the value are the same color, but the attribute is a different color.
The CMS-List is really busy today. You can read the archives here, but they are always a couple days behind.
