carlos granier-phelps: The Matrix

Theme change night

Fri, 22 Mar 2002 05:07:37 GMT

Theme change...! I'll be messing up with a new theme for a while. Love it? Hate it? Let me know. It's a tune-up of jenett.radio.simplicity.1.2. There's still some work to be done.

My fifteen minutes of weblog fame

Thu, 21 Mar 2002 19:43:17 GMT

So I look at my referrer log and see hundreds of hits coming in from Dave's website, www.scripting.com. Wow... what's going on? Turns out Dave noticed my little tutorial on OPML lists and mentioned it in his weblog.

It's kind of like my fifteen minutes of weblog fame. I hope some of you stick around.

Welcome!

I'll be away next week, so don't think I've abandoned my weblog. Soon, I'll have a new category dedicated solely to the art of negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution. In addition to my technical stuff, of course.

Enjoy, and let's all push Dave to get moving and wrap up the OPML subscription code.

Dave's new partnership -- The New York Times?

Wed, 20 Mar 2002 05:23:24 GMT

Dave is announcing his new partnership later today. My guess is that he's found a way to formally bring in the big journalism guns (think The New York Times) into the Radio community. And I say "formally" because I've been receiving news feeds from The New York Times for a long time already... all done from Radio.

But what does the NYT want with UserLand? Will they set-up a community server (or many, designed around the various news sections already in the paper) and distribute news that way? A kind of Pointcast 2002? Somehow, I don't think so. But if indeed this new partnership is with the NYT, then it must revolve about the NYT's use of UserLand technology (and not UserLand's use of the NYT's news feeds).

I have, however, noticed the following change: I've been subscribed to the New York Times' Technology news feed for a while now, using this url:

http://www.newsisfree.com/HPE/xml/feeds/62/162.xml

Tonight, I subscribed to their Opinion news feed, and this is the url:

http://radiouser:Csm!]-tvMm@partners.userland.com/nyt/opinion.xml

The website partners.userland.com (taken from that url) asks for a username and password to get in. If you plug-in the values on the above url (user:radiouser / pass:Csm!]-tvMm) you'll see a site with a folder named nyt which includes all the xml feeds.

Also, on the page where I just subscribed, Dave says:

In addition to all the fantastic XML news sources that Radio can bring you, now for the first time, direct from the source, we are proud to offer fresh headlines from The New York Times, every hour, on the News Aggregator page in Radio UserLand.

The New York Times feeds are only available for Radio 8 users.

From this, it seems that UserLand now has some kind of exclusive agreement with the NYT.

Well, soon we shall all know.

Virtual Keyboard

Wed, 20 Mar 2002 02:42:46 GMT

[Yahoo News] - A full-size fully functional virtual keyboard that can be projected and touched on any surface. Wow!

Thanks, Doc, for the link.

Tue, 12 Feb 2002 04:02:59 GMT

Film is dead... long live film:

[NYT] Digital Sensor Is Said to Match Quality of Film

[DP Review] Foveon X3 exclusive preview

[DP Review] Sigma SD9 D-SLR: Foveon X3 sensor

Mon, 11 Feb 2002 21:49:52 GMT

Ok, I won't be posting for the next couple of days... but I'll be back.

Thu, 31 Jan 2002 05:22:53 GMT

More interesting AOL links:

[Economist.com] - Who's afraid of AOL Time Warner?:

Although this article is presented in a negative tone, it actually paints a really interesting picture of what AOL can become.

[Fortune.com] - AOL's Formula: Does It Add Up?:

AOL would like to charge customers $159 per month for a variety of services, including broadband access, home networking, music subscription, mobile and voice services, games and entertainment. If they're able to pull this off then AOL at $27 (today's stock price) doesn't look like a bad deal.

[Fortune.com] - AOL Time Warner's New Math:

Good in-depth analysis of AOL Time Warner's evaporating market cap. Where did it go and how does it affect both the company and it's shareholders? Is $27 such a good deal?

[PC Magazine] - Pole Position:

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled on the use of utility poles, and its ruling could substantially reduce the price of high-speed Internet access. When setting prices for pole attachments involving Internet access, utilities were ignoring FCC regulations. "Internet access uses the same wire, whether it's coaxial cable or optical fiber, that's used to distribute the television video signals," continues Johnson, "but even though utilities were charging $5 to use a pole for video, they were charging $35 to use the pole for Internet access." In the end, this means people could be paying less for high-speed Internet access. Also, if the FCC begins regulating such pole attachments, far more companies could be willing to offer Internet access, increasing competition.

Mon, 28 Jan 2002 04:16:29 GMT

[SatireWire] - Tired of being isolated and ignored, Australia decides to move:

After what witnesses described as an all night blinder during which it kept droning on about how it was always being bloody ignored by the whole bloody world and would bloody well stand to do something about it, Australia this morning woke up to find itself in the middle of the North Atlantic.

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 06:41:56 GMT

Rómulo, this one's for you: Chronology of Animation - [Richard Llewellyn]

This is a chronology of dates in the history of animation around the world. The main focus is on animation created for artistic/entertainment purposes although it does have some coverage of animation created for education or advertising. It generally does not cover animation techniques used to create special effects in live action cinema or television.

Sun, 27 Jan 2002 06:18:31 GMT

[MacScripter] - iLoJack: A fantastic story of how AppleScript helped keep sensitive data from the prying eyes of a thief and helped recover a stolen iMac.

A wonderful saga about a stolen computer...

Fri, 25 Jan 2002 20:53:02 GMT

[John Robb] - Knowledge Workers and K-Logs:

When I worked at Forrester (a top technology research company), the CEO George Colony used to say (paraphrased), "in a sense our business is a like a mill. We grind raw grain into flour. It is my job as CEO to scoop up the grain that fell to the floor and put it back on the grindstone so it can be made into useful product. Everything our analysts think about while on the job has value. We need to find new ways to capture that thinking and sell it to clients." This is profound. In my view, this is something that all companies should strive for.

Este artículo es lo que yo llamo una "chispa" - léanlo y verán todas las cosas que se les empiezan a ocurrir. Escríbanlas y cuénteme.

Tue, 22 Jan 2002 04:14:47 GMT

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox - Community is Dead; Long Live Mega-Collaboration:

Un buen artículo del año 1997, explicando la importancia de los foros de opinión y discusión online vs. las salas de chat. Da algunas ideas interesantes sobre como aprovechar mejor las opiniones de los usuarios (resaltar los mejores mensajes, eliminar el "ruido", evaluaciones constantes entre los participantes).

Tue, 22 Jan 2002 03:35:58 GMT

[Yahoo! News] - Russia Shuts Down TV Station:

Sería bueno hacerle seguimiento a este caso...

Tue, 22 Jan 2002 03:33:02 GMT

[C|Net] - Sources: AOL not bidding for Red Hat:

De acuerdo a esta noticia, AOL y RedHat desmintieron que estuvieran en conversaciones para una posible negociación. Sin embargo, las razones para la compra siguen estando presentes. Manténganse alerta.

Tue, 22 Jan 2002 03:27:50 GMT

[SecurityFocus] - The Simplest Security: A Guide To Better Password Practices:

Lectura necesaria para todo el que utiliza passwords.

Tue, 22 Jan 2002 03:20:19 GMT

[ReadMe/Mansha Daswani] - Crisis of the (Virtual) Commons:

Despite the common wisdom that interactivity is one thing the Net does well, some mainstream news sites treat their public forums like bastard children. What are they afraid of?

"Media is: I write it, you read it, end of story. New media is: I write it, you have thoughts about it, I get to hear it."

Este artículo comenta la importancia de crear comunidades - foros de opinión y discusión - alrededor de los medios noticiosos (i.e., los foros de opinión de www.rctv.net) y los problemas encontrados por algunos websites (tecnológicos y funcionales). También presenta algunos casos positivos.

Mon, 21 Jan 2002 20:40:49 GMT

[Wired News/Michelle Delio] - AOL's Pursuit of the Penguin:

America Online users may soon be hearing "You've Got Linux" if rumors about AOL Time Warner's interest in purchasing a major Linux distributor play out.

Este artículo de Wired comenta varias de las razones por las cuales AOL pudiera estar interesado en RedHat.

Mon, 21 Jan 2002 17:32:38 GMT

The new digital home hub - [David Strom]

TiVo has the right idea: add computer-type components, but keep the user interface squarely (or with a 4:3 ratio) on the TV set.

Más información para PC v. TV.

Mon, 21 Jan 2002 16:54:48 GMT

Boingo launches nationwide wi-fi service:

"Boingo provides easy, lightning-fast wireless Internet access in hundreds of locations in the places business travelers already frequent. We're making Internet access outside the office or home simple and powerful."

Esta compañía ofrece acceso wireless (protocolo 802.11b) en casi todos los aeropuertos grandes de USA, así como en hoteles y ciudades. El costo no es excesivo y el software es muy ingenioso: le informa al usuario cuando hay una red wireless (gratis ó paga) cerca.

Mon, 21 Jan 2002 05:16:47 GMT

Más sobre AOL-RedHat:

¿Para qué necesita AOL una compañía que distribuye un sistema operativo gratis? Los consumidores no van a cambiar su sistema operativo (y todas sus aplicaciones) sólo para tener acceso a AOL. Es más, los usuarios de Linux, el sistema operativo que distribuye RedHat, tienden a ser expertos - precisamente el tipo de usuario que le huye a AOL.

AOL puede estar pensando en invertir grandes cantidades de US$ en RedHat para desarrollo y distribución de Linux. Quizás, inclusive, para desarrollar un sistema operativo con protección anti-copias incluido en el software (¿quién lo compraría?). AOL compró Netscape, invirtió millones y Netscape practicamente desapareció del mercado de navegadores. Money does not = success.

Otra posibilidad, quizás con más posibilidades de triunfar, es que AOL quiera desarrollar un paquete completo (sistema operativo, navegador, ISP, contenido, office-suite) para venderlo ya instalado en computadoras. El consumidor compraría un sistema completo, de bajo costo (la mayoría del software es gratuito ó mucho más barato que su equivalente en Microsoft), con conexión a Internet vía AOL. Pero primero tendran que convencer a un fabricante de computadoras, lo cual no debería ser muy difícil en este ambiente anti-Microsoft.

Otros artículos interesante sobre este tema:

Think Twice, Red Hat - Andy Oram de O'Reilly Network.

Sun, 20 Jan 2002 19:26:28 GMT

Television Addiction - By Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Este artículo de Scientific American presenta los resultados de varias investigaciones sobre la adicción a la televisión. Muy bien escrito, muestra ambos lados del argumento (si la adicción a la televisión causa irritabilidad y depresión ó si, por el contrario, las personas irritables y deprimidas acuden a la televisión como una vía de escape). No hay conclusiones claras, pero creo que es "required reading" para todos los que trabajamos en este medio. - [Link gracias a Adam Curry: CurryDotCom]

Sun, 20 Jan 2002 06:48:08 GMT

Business 2.0: The Case Against Knowledge Management - By Thomas A. Stewart, February 2002 Issue

There's an old saying at Xerox PARC: "Point of view is worth 80 IQ points."

Este es un artículo fascinante sobre Knowledge Management (KM), con ejemplos de la vida real. Explica los puntos importantes que se deben tomar en cuenta antes de instalar un sistema de KM, y la diferencia entre sistemas de KM para enseñar (i.e., almacenes de información y procedimientos) y sistemas de KM para aprender (i.e., listas de correo).

Sat, 19 Jan 2002 06:31:13 GMT

AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat - [Washington Post]

Esto si puede ser interesante. RedHat es uno de los más grandes distribuidores de Linux, AOL es el ISP más grande del mundo. Lo que no está muy claro es cual sería la estrategia. No creo que los consumidores estén dispuestos a cambiarse a Linux sólo para poder usar AOL. AOL podría tratar de combatir a Microsoft desde adentro, como un virus, desarrollando una versión del software AOL que corra en una sesión de Linux activada desde Windows - pero tampoco creo que los consumidores estén dispuestos a olvidar todas sus aplicaciones de Windows a la hora de conectarse a Internet sólo para usar AOL. Habrá que mantener los ojos abiertos a ver como se desarrolla esto.

Fri, 18 Jan 2002 06:22:59 GMT

News.Com: Studios nearing anti-copying tech for TV. They say they'll have a standard ready by the end of the first quarter of the year. That's an ambitious timetable for an issue that has caused considerable tension between Hollywood and electronics companies--and even between studios themselves--over the last year. [Tomalak's Realm]