October 2007
48 posts
A Fireside Chat with Ballmer about the iPhone
Ina Fried: Obviously, there's a lot of talk around the iPhone. When you look at the iPhone, what are the things that you say to the team, 'OK, this is an area we need to focus on'?
Ballmer: They've (Apple) done some nice work and they've got their own set of challenges. And we note both of those. Many people think they did a nice job with the gestures UI, you know, hats off to them. That doesn't mean it's perfect. But there is some stuff that they've done that's quite nice.
Ina Fried: So multitouch is something you can imagine seeing on mobile devices?
Ballmer: Multitouch is yet another issue. But I think the most important thing...I would say Apple has done a nice piece of work in the ability to gesture and have it mean something.
Ina Fried: What about full Web browsing? I mean, that seems to be the one feature of the iPhone that would also benefit business users.
Ballmer: It sure would.
“The White House severely edited congressional testimony given Tuesday by the...”
– Change [dot] org
“Online timesheets! Configurable timesheet for project costing, client billing,...”
– http://www.replicon.com/
Cut Emissions or Die →
Our addiction to fossil fuels and the pollution they create are at the root of many of our most pressing health, economic, and environmental challenges. But in the face of these challenges, the federal government has offered no leadership or meaningful solutions. To fill the vacuum, individual states are taking steps to do what Washington has not.
“For Apple, the iPhone is turning out to be the goose that laid the golden eggs,...”
– ZDNet
Also of note... →
Radio scientists at IBM Research and MediaTek are teaming up to develop a wireless transmission protocol that will deliver files more than 100 times faster than Wi-Fi.
WatchString theory in two minutes, cool. Science and Technology News, Science Articles | Discover Magazine
oddlyzen: is buying a new car - bye for now! (via Twitter / oddlyzen)
oddlyzen: Introducing some new folks to the client’s new CMS. Lovely! (via Twitter / oddlyzen)
oddlyzen: getting ready for lunch and the meeting; then house hunting. (via Twitter / oddlyzen)
Mmm, brains...
From Wikipedia: A zombie is a reanimated corpse devoid of consciousness. In contemporary versions these are generally undead corpses, which were traditionally called “ghouls”. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou. Other more macabre versions of zombies have become a staple of modern horror fiction, where they are brought back from the...
Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines →
The goals for these official Windows Vista® User Experience Guidelines (or UX Guide for short) are to: Establish a high quality and consistency baseline for all Windows Vista-based applications. Answer your specific user experience questions. Make your job easier!
Comet brightens mysteriously by a factor of a... →
A comet usually too faint to be seen with the naked eye has brightened by a factor of a million since Tuesday, suggesting its surface may have cracked open and expelled clouds of dust and gas. Astronomers are scrambling to observe the strange object, which is likely to fade in the coming days and weeks.
“Mozilla Labs is launching a series of experiments to bridge the divide in the...”
– Mozilla Labs Blog » Prism
The Layoff Lifeboat: How to Get Back to Work →
Nobody wants to talk about layoffs. They’re humbling, humiliating, draining and have a huge fiscal and professional drain on those that have been affected by them. But if you work in IT, it is rare to not know at least one person who has been down that road, and how hard it was for them to get back on their feet.
Tech pay approaches all-time high... →
SAP consultants earned $88.07 per hour, Java developers garnered $50.89 in the third quarter, according to the Yoh Index of Technology Wages.
OLPC experiments with cow-powered laptops ...... →
The goal is to develop a low-cost energy source that can be used in Indian villages. Working in a village close to Mumbai, Sarwal said the group considered using solar energy but sunlight near Mumbai was not “consistently strong.” There was not enough wind or running water nearby to use these as sources of power, and the cost of running a gas-powered motor was too high.
“How much is $15 billion? It’s hard to understand how much money that really is....”
– Perspective: Facebook Is Now 5th Most Valuable U.S. Internet Company
oddlyzen: is tumbling; then getting back to work after a cup of coffee. (via Twitter / oddlyzen)
Watch Free horror, kung fu, sci fi and western... →
Here you’ll find hundreds of movies that have been lost in the wasteland of forgotten cinema. No sign-up or log-in needed, just hours and hours of B All you’ll need is a broadband connection and hours to waste. Enjoy!
25 Skills Every Man Should Know →
…If you don’t want to replace your equipment, stretch the network through your electrical wiring. Powerline networking hubs (available from Netgear and Linksys) transmit your Internet connection from one outlet to any other in your house. Use them to move your access point to an ideal spot, or to set up a second hot spot for more coverage.
“We’re going to have to program differently, very differently.”
– Programming Superstars Eye Parallelism
Geek stars: The secret (nerdy) life of celebrities →
Action star and fellow chemical engineering degree-holder Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV, The Punisher), meanwhile, was attending grad school at MIT on a Fulbright when he decided to drop out and try the acting thing. Finally, beauty queen Hedy Lamarr (Ecstasy, Samson and Delilah) owns us all for her pioneering work on spread spectrum technology, which makes both Ethernet and your cell phone tick.
“The brain is just barely functioning in the security community. It’s still...”
– Schneier: Beware security products
“The ever-mutating, ever-stealthy Storm worm botnet is adding yet another trick...”
– Lobotomy, anyone?
Update: Facebook chooses Microsoft over Google →
In addition to the ownership piece, Microsoft will also extend its existing agreement to provide banner ads to Facebook in the U.S. With this deal, Microsoft will become Facebook’s exclusive third-party ad platform as well as provide Facebook ads internationally.
“On Wednesday, two days after a Virginia high school senior infected with a...”
– Staph deaths: Now may be a good time to clean workplace keyboards
Have a Popfly on Us →
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will use the annual Web 2.0 Summit here Oct. 18 to announce the public beta release of Popfly, a tool built on Microsoft Silverlight that lets people build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages and applications.
So Much for India →
In the next four years, they were be an additional 7 million jobs added in IT with about 60 percent of those in software. The fastest-growing country for IT jobs is China with the United States behind it…
We didn't change Automatic Updates, nuh-uh →
Microsoft today denied that its software had arbitrarily changed Windows Vista’s update settings, and instead said users were responsible for the modifications that generated claims of unauthorized patch installs.
“We have a great partnership with Facebook on the advertising front. We love...”
– Steve Ballmer
IT Must Tackle 5 Trends, Analyst Group Says →
Question IT core assumptions. Users have become more independent in recent years when it comes to IT needs. Businesses should reevaluate their strategies. Experiment with free-form environments. “Social environments” are the wave of the future. Companies should provide interactive tools, such as content tagging systems, RSS feeds, blogs, wikis, etc. Help customers innovate. IT...
“Big screens, touch, ink, speech, that’s something that I think, along with...”
– Bill Gates
“Forget peace and happiness. Most U.S. adults want a computer under the tree this...”
– World Peace vs. New Computer
A List Apart: Articles: Findings From the Web... →
The findings we present here have never been seen before, because until now, no one has ever conducted public research to learn the facts of our profession. This report is not the last word on web work; it is only the beginning of a long conversation. Read, reflect, and let us hear from you.
Microsoft's Next Great Software Gambit? →
It was back to the future for Microsoft today. The company’s chairman and co-founder Bill Gates took the stage here to help launch the company’s Unified Communications (UC) software. In other words, he was here to talk phones. (hmmm…)
“Facebook has opened up its social-networking platform to developers. Google is...”
– » Are all ‘open’ Web platforms created equal?
Mother's ire puts Ballmer on defense over Vista →
“I’m one of those early adopters of Vista,” said Yvonne Genovese, an analyst who was interviewing Ballmer along with fellow analyst David Smith on stage at a conference forum. “My daughter comes in one day and says, ‘Hey Mom, my friend has Vista, and it has these neat little things called gadgets — I need those.’” Said Ballmer: “I love your...
“Under the Startup Accelerator Program, the company is providing custom access to...”
– Microsoft Program to Help Give Startups a Start
Sun patches critical Java bugs →
The fixes to JRE (Java Runtime Environment) 1.3.1, 1.4.2, 5.0, and 6.0 plug holes that attackers could use to bypass security restrictions, manipulate data, disclose sensitive information or compromise an unpatched machine. Among the JRE bugs, Sun said in several security advisories, are two that allow attack code from malicious sites to make network connections on machines other than the...
Sun Unveils Virtualization Platform →
Sun Microsystems on Thursday unveiled its virtualization platform, a combination hypervisor and management tool that the company plans to start rolling out in December.
“EBay and PayPal have upgraded their computer systems to support an emerging...”
– Yahoo!: No Phishing
World Teacher Appreciation Day →
Teacher appreciation on World Teacher´s Day is basically a day on which the children/students honour their teachers and recognize the lasting contributions, which they make to their lives. Not only the children organize special acts and events for their teacher, but also member organizations, national coalitions, teacher organizations and the individual schools have many activities planned on...
“The caretaker of jQuery, a project that simplifies writing JavaScript for...”
– Infoworld