Slashdot Mirror

Here is a Link to the print version of the article (that convenientily fits on 1 page instead of 3).

Providing a great GUI for complex routers or Linux admin is hard. Of course there has to be a CLI, that's how pros get the job done. But a great GUI is one that teaches a new user to eventually graduate to using CLI.

A bad GUI with no CLI is the worst of both worlds, the author of the article got that right. The 80/20 rule applies: 80% of the work is common to everyone, and should be offered with a GUI. And the 20% that is custom to each sysadmin, well use the CLI.
--
dead simple alternative to incorporating for web startups

Funny just this morning I noticed that it took at least 5 redirects or more for Google to let me login to Analytics. It felt like my browser had a life of its own!

The real problem though are the link shorteners. I'd like to vote with my feet and never click on them, but for many, they are like drugs, because they let you track your influence (how many people clicked) in real-time. It's especially bad on slower connections such as smartphones. Not everyone has 1MB/s.

Any ideas on how to convince people to stop?

--
Don't work on your startup project without a safety net

The challenge for open source is that, while it's a fun hobby, how can we make it sustainable?"

sustainable is the key word for me here. If selling to a private corporation is the only sustainable way, that's too bad. That's why I like hybrid software licenses that combine open collaboration with some guarantee of revenue-sharing. Can we find a way to work together on a piece of code but still sell it for a reasonable price to end-users and sustain the developers? I sure hope so.

Because in the case of Metasploit, what do you think happens when all the developers now have a paying job? Even though the code is open, if it doesn't get maintained, it will die. So in practice, the project is basically at the mercy of the acquirer.

As of this submission, the issue still hasn't been resolved

Not true. If I read the explanation carefully, what really happened is that some credit card companies sometimes add the CC number to the description of the purchased item. Bad! Which also means that on your printed statement for instance, your full CC number will appear. During beta testing of Blippy, they were not aware of that "feature", so they let through the full CC number of 4 beta testers. Once they figured it out, they easily added a filter.

If you were a beta tester for a service like Blippy, you can't be too shocked that this might happen. A better discussion would be what is Blippy really good for? I can see why I might like to browse other people's purchases once in a while, but why would I want to broadcast mine?

--
better than an internship in a startup: become a founder!

career experts say you have to take a strategic approach to your job search and application process. The best candidates are always taking steps to manage their careers...

I fully agree. If you sit passively and wait for your next raise, you may be waiting for a while... But if you are proactive, good things eventually happen to you. Contribute to an open-source project. Become the co-founder of a cool iPad app or whatever cool idea people are trading nowdays...

It doesn't pay off instantly, but a year or two later, your resume stands out from the crowd, and more importantly, you may not even need a resume anymore to get a great job!

Here's how you hack a patent. From claim 1:

wherein the initial motion meets or exceeds an initial motion threshold; sensing a complementary motion of said computer device in a reverse direction to the initial direction

As long as the iPhone or Android do not use one threshold and are more generic than detecting reverse direction, they do not infringe on that patent. Whoever wrote that claim made it way too specific, and easy to work around it.

-- co-founders wanted.

Or, as long as they don't sense the complementary motion in a reverse direction, with both the initial motion and the complementary motion being necessary to effect the system change.

Alternately:

wherein sensing the initial motion and sensing the complementary motion occur before the generating the at least one control signal

Generate a control signal after sensing the initial motion, but before the complementary motion and you're good, too.

Here's how you hack a patent. From claim 1:

wherein the initial motion meets or exceeds an initial motion threshold; sensing a complementary motion of said computer device in a reverse direction to the initial direction

As long as the iPhone or Android do not use one threshold and are more generic than detecting reverse direction, they do not infringe on that patent. Whoever wrote that claim made it way too specific, and easy to work around it.

--
co-founders wanted.

This blog shows what really happened:

I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother.
There’s a BIG drop-off between them and my other “most frequent” contacts.
You know who my third most frequent contact is?
My abusive ex-husband.
Which is why it’s SO EXCITING, Google, that you AUTOMATICALLY allowed all my most frequent contacts access to my Reader, including all the comments I’ve made on Reader items, usually shared with my boyfriend, who I had NO REASON to hide my current location or workplace from, and never did.

It shows more eloquently than any privacy advocate ever could why privacy is so important when "you don't have anything to hide."

--
find a co-founder

1. Developers are king. If you could attract one more developer, your project would stand a much higher chance of success.

2. Just because you open-sourced your project doesn't mean it's useful to anyone. No matter how much we geeks don't like marketing, you have to think hard about your users: where are they, what do they care about and what do they really need?

It's normal for all new projects to languish for a while. If you think twitter was an instant success, remember that it had 2 years of null traffic before taking off. Go out and ask users what they want. Think. Then implement. Your #1 potential mistake today: feature creep. Don't think that if only you added this one more feature, the crowds would come. If anything, try to simplify things :-) and start communicating (posting on slashdot is not ideal, you should post wherever your users are, not talk to developers).

The link to the official French recommendation is here: CERTA-2010-ALE-001

Quoting from it (rough translation): "while waiting for the editor [Microsoft] to correct this vulnerability, we recommend people use an alternate browser.

--
are you a startup founder looking for co-founders?

IT employees in the category of "highly engaged" workers has fallen to 4%

That's why there is a growing movement toward mastering our own destiny, becoming entrepreneurs and working for ourselves. Putting together a cool app in your spare time is way more fun, and it you hit the jackpot, bingo! No more clueless boss!

Buy support. Pay for your Linux licenses. Just because it's open source doesn't mean that you should pay $0.

By buying from a legitimate open source company, you help reinforce the open source eco-system.

And it's all legitimate: it's not a donation, so your boss shouldn't object. You are still saving a lot of money compared to buying a proprietary solution, but you are helping people who code full-time sustain themselves. Let's face it, developers are the critical resource for most open source projects.

PS: some cool startups are looking for extra developers/founders: help people go solar, build a better bug collector tool, or help build a music community that supports its bands.

"The Chinese vendor for our MSN China joint venture has now acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied," said Microsoft

This case gives us a great window into what a world without copyright protection would look like: everyone ripping off everyone else's code. There got to be a compromise that works for both the GPL and the RIAA, so end users (us) win.

Plus it's ironic that Microsoft, the "king" of software development is having all those problems with subcontractors writing code for them.

--
you don't need to be in silicon valley to start a startup anymore

No carrier wants geeks. Geeks use up a lot of network resources, try to find ways around rules, and create problems for tech support.

Yes. But geeks also build new cool applications never before thought possible, that become next year's must-haves.

In a sense, the iPhone app ecosystem is proof to that, despite its less-than-open review process. Palm and the PC as well, if you want to go back in history.

How hard can it be for the base-station to monitor bandwidth and avoid taking the whole network down?

--
Meet co-founders for your startup

We on slashdot are pretty much the only ones who care about net neutrality. My dad(*) doesn't have a clue why it's important.

The App Store is the most flagrant example of non-neutral app built on top of the Internet. But if you were to push the argument further, I have restrictions on how many pictures I can upload on Flickr. Is that neutral?

(*) I'm using my dad as a stereotype instead of my mother because I recently learned that using mothers as examples of clueless users is sexist. So I'm applying some affirmative action

--
help build the web community where fans get involved with the bands they love

I have dealt quite a bit with copyright law when creating FairSoftware's virtual company license. I'm afraid the author is incorrect when he says that he retains copyright, therefore he can authorize people to download his book for free. He most likely granted the publisher an exclusive license.

Did you read HIS contract? If not, you are only guessing. He may actually have negotiated and retained rights..

sure its doubtful, but its his contact, not yours.

I have dealt quite a bit with copyright law when creating FairSoftware's virtual company license. I'm afraid the author is incorrect when he says that he retains copyright, therefore he can authorize people to download his book for free. He most likely granted the publisher an exclusive license. The whole point of the word exclusive is to say that although you are the author, you can't give the text to anyone else anymore, once you signed the book deal.

That being said, this is a great blog post for everyone who ever wondered how tech book deals work. He is making about $2 per sale of a $40 book! So there's a great debate about whether to go with an editor which will take a much lower cut, but will also not be so good at promoting the book. At least someone is making money from publishing content related to open source technology :-)

There got be an iPhone app for that! Wait, actually I had started to spec one. Any developers interested in improving on it?

Quick survey: how much would you be willing to pay for an app to that makes you look smarter in front of "attractive women"?

There got to be a healthy market in there somewhere. I'm sure I could find plenty of beta testers (just like in the study)...

The most thoughtful article I read that truly explains what the technical tradeoffs are with dock/taskbar design: here.

On a similar topic, if you want to work on the home page GUI for Android, there is an on-going project as well.

The good news for consumers is that both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are great-looking OS. Computerworld is just wrong to give a point to Apple on price :-)

30 bucks..

a proprietary OS for 30 bucks deserves 5 points on price.

apple releasing a version of osx for 30 bucks is metaphorically equivalent to an 2010 infiniti M slapped with a 20k(US) sticker price.

The most thoughtful article I read that truly explains what the technical tradeoffs are with dock/taskbar design: here.

On a similar topic, if you want to work on the home page GUI for Android, there is an on-going project as well.

The good news for consumers is that both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are great-looking OS. Computerworld is just wrong to give a point to Apple on price :-)

For once, it's worth reading TFA until the end, when you find out: that the blog had "minuscule" traffic, it was taken down as soon as the lawsuit was filed, and it only had 5 posts all written in one day. Basically the blog was dead.

Sure, as a public figure, it's never fun to be insulted on the Internet (ask Mike Arrington if you don't believe me). But this didn't seem to warrant a full-fledged lawsuit.

--
Calling all indie iPhone developers: fair and open app crowdsourcing

Let's see if you can find the trick in Palm's privacy policy:

Personal information is information directly identifiable to you, such as your name, address, email address, and phone number, as well as other non-public information associated with such information. Some examples of how we collect and use personal information include ... [ a list that sounds pretty safe and reasonable]

The operating word is Some examples: legally, they don't say that the list is exhaustive and that they don't collect information any other way. So the long list of nice looking collection is just a decoy!

--
FairSoftware.net -- iPhone dev jobs for geeks by geeks

From the article:

a Participant that is part of a team understands and agrees that if his/her team is selected to receive a Prize, the team is responsible for ensuring the funds are appropriately distributed to each member of the team

Cool! This is the first time that I see Google proactively support a revenue share solution for developers!

Developers can officially unite, work together, collaborate, and maybe split $100,000. Nice. These are very flexible and open terms on the part of Google.

A good example of the justice system at work for your average citizen... So really, what happens next? The guy files for bankruptcy. The RIAA doesn't get any money (not that they really intend to get significant income from those cases). What are the consequences for Mr. Tenenbaum? Can't get a credit card for a few years? Needs to get a job? I'm really curious as to what the true consequences will be.

--
fantasy camp for iPhone developers

Does the extra 15 seconds added by the operator really cost me anything since my phone bill uses 1-minute increments?

What would save us consumers a lot more money is having cellphone operators bill usage by the second. The European Commission already
forced the European operators to adopt 1-second billing increments.

--
crowdsource your iPhone app ideas

shameless plug: the digital nomad also cut loose all links with cubicle nation, including the employee contract. Instead, they work on agile projects, where groups of people can dynamically recombine online using stuff like online deals.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. What matters is confronting your idea with real world feedback and you'll be astonished by the results (read this for more on keeping your idea confidential: the great startup idea that I can't reveal yet).

Guy Kawasaki gave one really good suggestion to test your idea: convince a woman. It sounds stupid and insulting, but what he really means is that it's too easy for geeks and tech lovers to fall in love with a geeky idea. Presumably, women are more grounded and will tell you why your idea is not practical.

Finally, regarding confidentiality: don't worry about it so much

browser that I've seen.' Wave is like giant Web page onto which users can ããf£ãffããfãdrag and drop any kind of object, including instant messaging and

Ideas are a dime a dozen. What matters is confronting your idea with real world feedback and you'll be astonished by the results (read this for more on keeping your idea confidential: the great startup idea that I can't reveal yet).

Guy Kawasaki gave one really good suggestion to test your idea: convince a woman. It sounds stupid and insulting, but what he really means is that it's too easy for geeks and tech lovers to fall in love with a geeky idea. Presumably, women are more grounded and will tell you why your idea is not practical.

Finally, regarding confidentiality: don't worry about it so much

Some monetization techniques make sense (charging $5 for a premium account), but I'm shocked by this one:

Techdirt Reviews Your Business Plan, only $5,000. Describe your business, and what you're trying to accomplish... We'll run it as a case on the Insight Community

There are better ways to crowdsource a business idea. At least you'll get unbiased feedback (caveat: I'm one of the founders).

To everyone starting out there: conserve your cash, don't spend it on any of those "magical programs" or consultants that promise you the moon.

What almost makes more sense, if you really want to pick the brains of the TechDirt guys is to fork the $1,000 for spending one day with them (even tough I think it's only worth maybe $200).

The French "Conseil Constitutionnel" is a joke compared to the US Supreme Court, but for once they made the right decision.

At a minimum, the right to defend yourself and face your accuser was sorely lacking from the "3-strike" legislation. The French legal system already has the equivalent of the US small claims court, so there was no reason for the ISPs to become judges.

The other good news is that the court is basing its decision on the fact that a right to communication (speech, really, if you translate into US constitution lingo) includes the right to access the Internet. That's pretty cool potentially!

--
pour les developpeurs qui n'habitent pas dans la Silicon Valley: FairSoftware

Agreed. Trackers such as Google Analytics and more have been around for years. But now it's getting even worse with the flurry of URL shorteners. Not only can't you see what the real URL points to, its main purpose is to track, track, track.

Personally, I don't believe it makes sense to have a web completely free of "web bugs". I'd rather have some pretty strong laws, along the lines of the presumption of innocence, so that anything collected about you can't possibly be used against you if it was obtained "by chance". That would be a start.

--
escape the corporate world, code for fun and profit

One idea, based on what I have seen work abroad, is to mandate, for a limited time, a fee of $1 on all Internet connections. You could then use that monthly credit to subscribe to whatever content you chose. That would inject millions in the content economy. If what you want is free music, use your credit for that. If you want to read the New York Times, fine.

After a few years, phase out the fee (hum...). By then, people should have gotten used to it and you get a smooth transition to people using micro-payments for content. Any better ideas?

-- FairSoftware.net -- fair jobs for iPhone developers and graphic designers

We all know paywalls won't work. However, the alternative is worse: if newspapers don't find a way to make money online soon, they'll start seriously blending advertising inside news content. I don't want that to happen!

One idea, based on what I have seen work abroad, is to mandate, for a limited time, a fee of $1 on all Internet connections. You could then use that monthly credit to subscribe to whatever content you chose. That would inject millions in the content economy. If what you want is free music, use your credit for that. If you want to read the New York Times, fine.

After a few years, phase out the fee (hum...). By then, people should have gotten used to it and you get a smooth transition to people using micro-payments for content. Any better ideas?

--
FairSoftware.net -- fair jobs for iPhone developers and graphic designers

Get him a girlfriend.

That's pretty much the only solution.

Save a geek: help me develop the Geek Saver, the iPhone app that makes dating for geeks a breeze!

The problem with free (gratis) is that it doesn't pay the bills for the developer. I'm not talking about being greedy, but accessories like kids, spouse and house come in handy in winter :-)

That's why I have been giving more and more thought to a Fair business model, which would combine the best of two worlds: libre, but not gratis.

The distributed revenue sharing part we already solved with FairSoftware.

It would work like this: Corporations and end-user would have to pay for the service or software. But it wouldn't quite be commercial. The proceeds would be shared among the development team. But you could still retain the rights to see the source and modify or tweak it for your environment. Your only constraint is that if you redistribute, you must pay the licensing fee to the original team.

All it takes is to put more libre in the Software Bill of Rights. Volunteers?

Call it sustainable development if you will.

Finally an Open Source project with some real marketing geniuses on board! That alone deserves celebration.

I don't think this will quite work, but it's a step in the right direction. Will users get to pick which line they adopt? You could even imagine an auction system. Some lines might become very trendy: "I own the main function declaration of the program, but that cost me $500".

I'll ask the people on my entrepreneur network if they like the model!

Having been a hiring manager for a couple of years, I got used to scanning resumes and deciding within 10 seconds whether to read further or not. Guess what: the one thing that matters is relevant experience.

How can you get relevant experience in a few months? Contribute to an Open Source project. Join one of the Fair projects listed on my site.

Contribute. Learn. Then put this fresh experience on your resume. Then you'll be hired (at least you would have a year ago - in this new economy, even Bill Gates would be jobless).

It's great because while you can generally deduct your expenses from your income, if you are contributing to free software code, by definition you are not making any money.

An alternative of course is to join a fair project instead (warning: shameless plug - you have been warned). Think of it like open source, except that if someone makes money with the resulting software , that person owes a fair share back to the developers.

$200 is too low. I want to be able to deduct my MacBook Pro. But hey, New York is leading the way. Anyone knows if this has a chance to pass?

Instead of this fancy legal term of "hot news", I use another term for what AHN is doing to AP: "plagiarism". According to nolo:

putting your name on someone else's work is still plagiarism and is unethical within artistic, scientific, academic and political communities

I guess the press is not one of those communities. I'm not a big fan of lawsuits: I was sued once by a company that wanted to put me out of business and they almost succeeded. Being right doesn't matter, it's whoever has the deepest pockets.

So in this case, I'd much rather have the community (the readers) shun AHN. It's important for everyone to know what is going on, and let the public make their own choices.

--
FairSoftware.net -- where geeks are their own boss

My favorite Google Street View story: Google Maps Car Hits Deer.

Just like the settlement it reached with book authors, Google could give $66 to each homeowner photographed by StreetView. We could call that agreement the Google stimulus package :-)

There is a serious discussion to be had about privacy rights and Google's objective to picture, reference and catalog everything. Some inside Google take the "do no evil" to heart. Street View blurs faces and license plates.

Good, but I wish it didn't have to be voluntary. We know what voluntary compliance by various industries lead to. That's why privacy laws have to set clear boundaries. In the dismissed lawsuit, note that the Google driver did enter a private road by mistake. Mistakes in sensitive privacy situations can be very damaging.

--
Join a FairSoftware Project: share the revenue, be part of important decisions

I used to work for a processor company. I learned one thing: it's impossible to beat Intel, they just invest so much in technology that even if you come up with a smarter cache algorithm, a better pipeline, or (god forbid) a better instruction set, they'll still crush you.

That used to be true for the last 20 years. The only problem today is that no one really cares anymore about CPU speed. 32nm technology will allow Intel to put more cores on a die. They'll get marginal, if any, frequency improvements. We just need to wait for the applications to follow and learn to use 16 cores and more. I know my workload could use 16 cores, but the average consumer PC? Not so sure. That's why I'd like to see prices starting to fall, instead of having same prices, more power PCs.

--
FairSoftware.net -- where geeks are their own boss

You can use any of a number of already existing policies. For instance, the Open Standards Policy of Massachusetts is very nicely worded:

Commonwealth's Position

• Effective and efficient government service delivery requires system integration and data sharing.
• Technology investments must be made based on total cost of ownership and best value to the Commonwealth. Component-based software development based on open standards allows for a more cost-effective "build once, use many times" approach.
• Open systems and specifications are often less costly to acquire, develop and maintain and do not result in vendor lock-in.

--
Interested in exploring a possible business idea with friends?

A great initiative on paper, but I doubt it will lead to much. As someone who wrote a patent more than a decade ago and had the pleasure of being sued by my ex-employer (using my patents against me - nice), I can attest to the craziness of claim construction and other esoteric legal arguments.

Unlike coding as a group, which gave us Linux, creating meaningful and valid prior art is both harder and much less rewarding. That's why I doubt it can get enough contributors to make a difference.

Can't we just force the patent examiners to use Google search instead?

--
Fair Revenue Sharing for Bloggers: Pageviews or Equity?

Some points to consider: 10% is worth nothing because until the company gets acquired, shares have no cash value. For a small IT shop, it's unlikely that it ever will be acquired, it will probably fold once all the key consultants or the owner are burned out.

What would be meaningful is a 10% revenue share of the annual profits. Check out FairSoftware for a good example of how to mix equity and revenue sharing (disclaimer: I came up with that). It doesn't apply directly to your situation because your company is already mature, but it's a useful guide to everyone considering starting a software business today.

Another curious point: how does the owner intend to force you to stick around for another 5 years? Are you talking about stock options vesting over that period of time? Five years is a very long time. Think of it this way: if you had been offered stock options from the beginning, you'd already be fully vested, since you say you have already been working there for 6 years. Ask for some credit for time served :-)

Bottom line: the fact that you are getting this offer is a strong sign that you are in a good negotiating position. But my advice is that the offer is weak. You can do better. Congratulations and good luck! Ownership is cool.

I don't care so much about the download speed of 60 Mbit/s (although it would allow streaming of live HD, which requires 6 - 10 Mbit/s sustained).

What I'd love is the upload bandwidth of 5 Mbit/s. Forget about file swapping: the killer app for the family is video conferencing that works. Can you see me? I'm tired of the pixellized, ugly, breaking video chat on skype.

Of course, I wouldn't trust a soon-to-be-bankrupt provider on anything, especially the promise that they don't plan to throttle the traffic. Yeah, right!

--
5 Reasons You Shouldnâ(TM)t Incorporate Your Business

This is voodoo science. And I don't mean the LHC experiments.

I mean the TFA that in essence claims that because an expert may be wrong, any probability the expert assigns to a risk can be ignored and inflated by as much you feel like it. Talk about bias.

--
The 5 Steps to a Great Startup Idea

I don't know if I should laugh or cry. On the one hand, $100,000 is serious money. On the other hand, it barely pays for a good developer for one year.

If that's all the resources that one of the most prominent open source foundations has to fight proprietary software, we're in trouble.

Anyway, where does one apply for more grants from the Mozilla foundation? Here are the grant amounts for 2007, see if you can read a subliminal message:

- mozdev.org: $10,000
- Parrot: $10,000
- Dojo Ajax toolkit: $70,000
- Jambu: $10,000
- NVDA: $90,000
- creatives commons: $100,000
- seneca college: $100,000
- Gnome: $10,000
- coreboot: $10,000

--
The 5 Steps to a Great Startup Idea

Sorry, these are just different skins on top of the same Safari (webkit) engine. Of course, Flash is still forbiddden on the iPhone. It's sad, but there's a very good reason for it.

Imagine if anyone could do dummy iPhone apps using Flash, put them anywhere on the web, with absolutely no control from Apple. There'd be popups asking you to enter your credit card every 10 seconds, ads left and right, etc. Users would eventually be fed up and find the iPhone ugly. I guess Apple cares too much to let that happen.

--
FairSoftware.net -- where geeks are their own boss

So many great quotes from a certain Hugh Griffiths, Head of Mobile at Microsoft UK:

We'll be looking to enhance the service if we get some interest from consumers

PR101: Don't tell journalists that no one cares about your product.

At the moment we don't have the functionality in-house to provide a mechanism for transferring between mobile phones and PC

CS101: Microsoft doesn't have the technology in-house to do a simple file transfer?

I didn't realise phones were churning that quickly in the marketplace these days

How clueless can you be? This guy almost makes me feel good about the other news of the day (Microsoft to laying off 5,000).

I suspect a Microsoft conspiracy to reassure their shareholders that indeed, getting rid of deadwood will not hurt business, on the contrary! He is a living proof (assuming he is one of the "chosen").

--
FairSoftware.net -- where geeks are their own boss

Developer count is not what matters. Linux has plenty of great developers. Marketing is what's missing to Linux today.

Sadly, if you google "Ubuntu Marketing", you land on an empty page (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam/News). Maybe someone needs to update Google's index :-)

Everyone here knows that Linux has the technical goods to take on Windows. But the cheerleading is missing. Where are the ads (with or without Jerry Seinfeld) and the glossy brochures at Best Buy?

So yes, Ubuntu being sustainable is a step in the right direction.

--
FairSoftware.net -- jobs for geeks by geeks

Interestingly a similar search "Fedora Marketing" points to a much more professional page - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing. Anybody at Ubuntu listening?