bit.ly is still up... It puts in perspective the most recent annoucement on Libya's (.ly) registrar: " FREE DNS Management Only with Libyan Spider". (http://libyanspider.com/ - which still works fine too, go register.ly domain names now before it's too late!)
One wireless carrier alone like Verizon couldn't implement such a net-killing feature: their customers would abandon them cold. And if all the US carriers adopted that together, that would be the best case to start an antitrust investigation and shake the wireless landscape once and for all.
That being said, you got to look a slide #6: it's one of the best expression of greed I have ever seen.
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.
It seems that the bug is due to Safari allowing keyboard events to be generated from Javascript, so a malicious script can pretend to interact as if it were the user, whereas Firefox doesn't get fooled.
Payment. You shall pay to the Company the total, lump sum of Two Thousand Five Dollars (US $2,500) by cashier’s check or credit card with no charge back or check cancellation.
Confidentiality. You agree that the terms of this Agreement shall remain STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL and MAY NOT be disclosed to any other party including but not limited to internet or on-line forums.
So don't go post this on slashdot or you'll owe this lawfirm $15,000!
The overlap is for grandma, who needed some kind of web device, and wasn't going to spend much at all on it. Until now, she would have gotten the cheapest laptop possible: a netbook. As of today, her geeky grandson is getting her an iPad. That's where the overlap is.
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?
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!
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.
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."
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.
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.
"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?
I don't condemn all software patents. Just because it's software doesn't mean that it can't be brilliant and stunningly innovative.
But sudo with a GUI? A quick fix I'd suggest to get rid of those bogus patents is to have a rule that says that if a patent is proven obvious later on, then the company (Microsoft in that case) would lose all their patents for the year. That would make them think twice before filing junk...
Check these guys out: They are specialized in pretty much exactly what you need.
You definitely want to use sound technologies, streaming, etc. Don't underestimate your audience, your average user tends to be really clueless, which means your terminals have to be rock-solid.
Congrats on landing what sounds like a cool project!
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
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:-)
Slashdot Mirror
bit.ly is still up... It puts in perspective the most recent annoucement on Libya's (.ly) registrar: " FREE DNS Management Only with Libyan Spider". (http://libyanspider.com/ - which still works fine too, go register .ly domain names now before it's too late!)
--
Founder Conference - join 500 entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley
One wireless carrier alone like Verizon couldn't implement such a net-killing feature: their customers would abandon them cold. And if all the US carriers adopted that together, that would be the best case to start an antitrust investigation and shake the wireless landscape once and for all.
That being said, you got to look a slide #6: it's one of the best expression of greed I have ever seen.
--
Foundrs.com: have you signed up your co-founders yet?
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
It seems that the bug is due to Safari allowing keyboard events to be generated from Javascript, so a malicious script can pretend to interact as if it were the user, whereas Firefox doesn't get fooled.
--
The Founder Conference is coming August 17
According to Wikipedia:
For a human eye with excellent acuity, the maximum theoretical resolution is 50 CPD (Cycles Per Degree). A rat can resolve only about 1 to 2 CPD.
I guess "rat-ina display" didn't sound as good to Apple marketing :-)
But really, so it may be 18 inches for "true" retina display versus 12 inches. Ok... Big deal.
--
Join Guy Kawasaki and 250+ founders at the Founder Conference'2010
I found this on the topic: the actual settlement form. Read it all at http://www.copyrightsettlement.info/wfesettlement.pdf
Payment. You shall pay to the Company the total, lump sum of Two Thousand Five Dollars (US $2,500) by cashier’s check or credit card with no charge back or check cancellation.
Confidentiality. You agree that the terms of this Agreement shall remain STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL and MAY NOT be disclosed to any other party including but not limited to internet or on-line forums.
So don't go post this on slashdot or you'll owe this lawfirm $15,000!
--
The Founder Conference'2010
The overlap is for grandma, who needed some kind of web device, and wasn't going to spend much at all on it. Until now, she would have gotten the cheapest laptop possible: a netbook. As of today, her geeky grandson is getting her an iPad. That's where the overlap is.
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:
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
I don't condemn all software patents. Just because it's software doesn't mean that it can't be brilliant and stunningly innovative.
But sudo with a GUI? A quick fix I'd suggest to get rid of those bogus patents is to have a rule that says that if a patent is proven obvious later on, then the company (Microsoft in that case) would lose all their patents for the year. That would make them think twice before filing junk...
---
the Co-FoundersMeetup in Mountain View is next week
Check these guys out: They are specialized in pretty much exactly what you need.
You definitely want to use sound technologies, streaming, etc. Don't underestimate your audience, your average user tends to be really clueless, which means your terminals have to be rock-solid.
Congrats on landing what sounds like a cool project!
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
This is straight from the author's blog:
My contract also states that I have exclusively allowed Apress to publish and reproduce my content
So I'd say there is a pretty good chance that the contract contains an exclusivity clause. This wasn't pure /. speculation.
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)...