My iGeneration

Mount Mac OS X Drive in Linux

2008-06-29T21:40:00.000-05:00

Unmount completely (if it tried to automount), make a folder for it, and then...

mount -t hfsplus /dev/sda /media/myfolder

Team Fortress 2 Exploit Exposes Steam Account Password?

2008-04-27T22:26:00.003-05:00

A number of secure accounts have been stolen on Steam as of late. The common software components that I'm aware of are the new Steam Friends system and Team Fortress 2. One of those packages have a major security flaw allowing Steam passwords to be compromised. I don't know if its just saved passwords or not. But I encourage everyone to lobby Valve about this issue before it happens to you (possibly again).

Facebook Introduces Lexicon, Chat

2008-04-23T15:39:00.003-05:00

Facebook today launched a feature called Lexicon, which mines wall posts for word patterns:

Lexicon is a tool to follow language trends across Facebook. Specifically, Lexicon looks at the usage of words and phrases on profile, group and event Walls. For example, you can enter "love, hate" (without quotations) to compare the usage of these two words on Facebook Walls. You may enter up to five terms, where each term can be a word or two-word phrase consisting of letters and numbers.

I'm sure this will be interested for linguistics majors out there.

The bigger feature released today is the on-site chat. It doesn't require any downloads so it already beats MySpace chat. Congrats, Facebook.

AT&T: Poor Estimation Skills

2008-04-20T19:37:00.003-05:00

Speaking at a Westminster eForum on Web 2.0 this week in London, Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T, warned that the current systems that constitute the Internet will not be able to cope with the increasing amounts of video and user-generated content being uploaded.

"The surge in online content is at the center of the most dramatic changes affecting the Internet today," he said. "In three years' time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today."

That figure is grossly overestimated. Do we need to invest more into the Internet backbone? Absolutely. Could 20 households in 2011, using a time machine to return to 2008, overload our current infrastructure? Absolutely not. Even with 4 laptops, 4 desktops, 4 cell phones/PDAs, 5 kitchen appliances, and 8 gaming platforms each hooked up to the Internet and downloading large amounts of HD content, those families would barely fill a T3 connection. Let's just say the Internet's pipes are quite a bit larger than a T3 pipe.

This is what happens when you let executives speak about technical topics.

On This Week's ABC News Democratic Debate

2008-04-18T22:41:00.004-05:00

A comment (one of nearly 20,000) selected from abcnews.com:

"Congratulations ABC! George and Charlie have finally succeeded in proving that network national news is no longer viable. You blew this opportunity and showed the millions of viewers that tuned in that any hope for an issue related exchange, instead offering salacious topics and commercials. As you ponder the future and your lack of viewership, hopefully you will remember this particular event lost more for your network than respect."

I couldn't agree more. This is why people nowadays assign more value to the blogosphere than to network news. A blogger, less concerned with the lowest common denominator, can focus on the issues that matter and ask harder hitting questions than an old school journalist. And that's what Americans want to see more of.

Network news (and other old people): Go ahead and disagree with me about the blogosphere being more valuable than current television news. Then try disagreeing with me in 10 years. Newspaper companies are already failing after making that bet in the 1990's...now that broadband enables quality video over the web, do you want to take the same chance?

MacBook Air Hacked In Two Minutes

2008-03-28T17:56:00.000-05:00

Mac OS X's reputation for security was tarnished Thursday when a team of researchers from Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) managed to hack a MacBook Air in two minutes using a zero-day vulnerability in Apple's Safari 3.1 Web browser.

The ISE security researchers -- Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel -- were participating in the "PWN to OWN" competition at the CanSecWest security conference, which began Wednesday in Vancouver, British Columbia.

"Pwn" is computer gaming slang for "own," as in conquer. The "p" typo serves to heighten the humiliation of defeat by emphasizing that the loss came at the hands of a youth who can't even spell or type correctly. The term has also come to be used in security circles.

YouTube Now Offering Analytics

2008-03-28T17:51:00.000-05:00

The Google blog has a post about the new analytical features of YouTube. These features are free and include "how often your videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time. You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks."

You can find these metrics by clicking under the "About this Video" button under My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos.

I wonder how this will affect the companies who are charging people for these very metrics? You'll likely see their business strategies shifting from a YouTube focus to the cross-site deployment and analytics on those other video sites.

Fedora 9 Alpha Released

2008-02-29T15:21:00.000-05:00

Get your copy of Fedora 9 (Alpha).

New Features Available for Facebook Pages

2008-02-22T10:06:00.001-05:00

Facebook Pages have some new features available for you Page owners:

1. User Photo Uploads
Now, your fans will be able to upload photos to your Facebook Page...if you let them. Go to your Facebook Page and Edit on the Photos box to turn on this feature. All New Pages will have this feature pre-enabled upon creation.

2. Dynamic Content in the Profile Box
You can now replace the main picture on your Facebook Page with dynamic content using either the Flash or FBML applications. Just install either of these applicaitons (find them at www.facebook.com/facebookpages and then select the flash/fbml option when you choose to edit your profile picture.)

3. Legal Drinking Age Settings
If you are a bar or alcohol company, you can adjust age settings to meet legal drinking age requirements by clicking edit on your Facebook page, and scrolling down to the settings box.

4. Mini-Feed
Mini-Feed is now movable on the Page. Just click on the word “Mini-feed” and drag it anywhere you please.

Copying MS Project Server Production Databases to Test or Dev

2008-02-21T14:05:00.002-05:00

Copying the Microsoft Project databases from one box to another is not a simple task. MSSQL Export does not work. You have to make a backup of the production database, copy the .bak file over to the second box, and then "restore" those databases there.

select [Name],[Value] from projectserver_archive.sys.extended_properties
where class_desc = 'DATABASE'
GO
select [Name],[Value] from projectserver_draft.sys.extended_properties
where class_desc = 'DATABASE'
GO
select [Name],[Value] from projectserver_published.sys.extended_properties
where class_desc = 'DATABASE'
GO
select [Name],[Value] from projectserver_reporting.sys.extended_properties
where class_desc = 'DATABASE'
GO

After restoring, this query will give you the GUID of each database. If they don't match up, it won't work. If they do match up, you can go ahead and provision (or re-provision) a project server site using these databases. You just act like you're creating a new "site", enter in the database details, and it will sync up with what data already exists in them.

Time to File Trend Micro in the "Bad Software Company" Category

2008-02-20T20:32:00.002-05:00

We have a Pick Your Brain request. This one comes from Barracuda Networks, the email and web security appliances company, but it’s about an attack on ClamAV, the Open Source antivirus product.

Barracuda includes ClamAV in some of its enterprise solutions, although it’s a small part of what Barracuda does. And Trend Micro has accused ClamAV of infringing a patent it owns, #5,623,600. It specifically has named Barracuda Spam Firewall, the Barracuda Web Filter, and the Barracuda IM Firewall as infringing. Trend Micro has been trying to get Barracuda to either pay license royalties for including ClamAV or stop using ClamAV in its products.

Barracuda, however, is an Open Invention Network licensee, and it decided to stand up and defend ClamAV against what it views as a bogus claim. Barracuda believes the patent is questionable, at best, and believes there is prior art to be found, so it decided to defend ClamAV on behalf of the community, and it asks for our help in finding prior art. Here’s the specific Barracuda request for prior art:

“People should look for art dated prior to Trend Micro’s filing date of September 26, 1995. The ‘600 patent is entitled “Virus Detection And Removal Apparatus For Computer Networks.” We are interested in all material, including software, code, publications or papers, patents, communications, other media or Web sites that relate to the technology described prior to the filing date.

In particular, this prior art should show antivirus scanning on a firewall or gateway. However, many of the claims do not require virus detection at a gateway. So any material that illustrates virus scanning on a file server is also of interest.

We also believe that a product called MIMESweeper 1.0 from a company called Clearswift, Authentium, or Integralis anticipates several claims of the ‘600 patent. We have yet to locate a copy of this product and would appreciate anyone who has a copy sending it our way.”

Litigation has begun, as I’ll explain in detail in a minute, and there is a complaint filed by Trend Micro at the International Trade Commission, against Barracuda and Panda Software International and Panda Distribution of California, and the ITC decided on December 21st to investigate the complaint.

Here’s how Trend Micro describes its patent in the ITC complaint:

“To decrease the risk of a virus entering and/or leaving a network, the ‘600 Patent scans for viruses and other undesired software at the gateway of a network. Moreover, because viruses may be embedded in the content (such as, for example, email attachments and other content from the World Wide Web), the ‘600 Patent scans the content.”

I know. You are rolling on the floor, gasping for breath because you are laughing so hard that anyone would even try to claim such an obvious thing as blocking viruses at the gateway. What can I tell you? Patents have gone beserk. For any who don’t know what blocking at the gateway means, it’s just that in the enterprise, you block before anything even reaches the employees’ computers, as opposed to each one installing antivirus software individually. Obvious. Obvious. Obvious business method.

But believe it or not, that’s what is being claimed as patented. I know. But with patents, what’s the use in being surprised or indignant? The whole system has veered so far from true North that the best response at this point is to find prior art and knock them down one by one until the message is received that attacking FOSS with patents is counterproductive.

Here’s what the ITC said the complaint is about and what happens next:

“The complaint alleges violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 in the importation into the United States of certain systems for detecting and removing viruses and worms, components thereof, and products containing same that infringe a patent owned by Trend Micro. The complainant requests that the ITC issue an exclusion order and cease and desist orders....

By instituting this investigation (337-TA-624), the ITC has not yet made any decision on the merits of the case. The case will be referred to the Honorable Carl C. Charneski, an ITC administrative law judge, who will schedule and hold an evidentiary hearing. Judge Charneski will make an initial determination as to whether there is a violation of section 337; that initial determination is subject to review by the Commission.

The ITC will make a final determination in the investigation at the earliest practicable time. Within 45 days after institution of the investigation, the ITC will set a target date for completing the investigation. ITC remedial orders in section 337 cases are effective when issued and become final 60 days after issuance unless disapproved for policy reasons by the U.S. Trade Representative within that 60-day period.”

I think they pretty much always do investigate complaints, by the way. If you’d like to read the ITC complaint, go to this page and search for Investigation Number: 337-624 or search by title: Certain Systems for Detecting and Removing Viruses or Worms, Components Thereof, and Products Containing Same, 337-TA-624. But no matter how you slice it, it’s a serious matter, and the time to find prior art is now.

Barracuda isn’t just interested in prior art regarding blocking at the gateway. In addition, specific features of interest listed include the following:

* virus detection at an FTP proxy server

* use of an FTP daemon

* virus detection at an SMTP proxy server

* use of an SMTP daemon

* determining whether the data is of a type that is likely to contain a virus, and only determining whether that data contains a virus

* signature scanning

* file typing by comparing extensions

* determining whether email messages with multiple encoded portions (i.e., attachments) contain viruses by storing each encoded portion in a separate temporary file, decoding the encoded portions of the mail message to produce decoded portions, and scanning each decoded portion for a virus

* mail parsing

* only scanning mail messages that have attachments

* performing a preset action if a virus is found, including, among other things, transferring the data unchanged, not transferring the data, storing the data with a new file name and alerting the recipient of the new file name, and transferring modified data.

So if you know of anything that did such things, or were written about, prior to the September 26, 1995 date, sing out. Barracuda has some examples of prior art it has in hand already, and if you go to their Legal Defense of Free and Open Source Software page, and scroll down to the Prior Art heading, you’ll find them.

I can’t help but note that Trend Micro didn’t go after ClamAV developers directly; it zeroed in on a business using ClamAV instead. Why might that be? I think it’s patent pragmatism at work. Litigation often starts with a “who has the deep pockets?” analysis, because most litigation is about money. And I understand that McAfee, Symantec and Fortinet have all settled with Trend Micro already, although the details are not public. But this seems to be about more than that. Anyway, FOSS projects really can’t play that patent money game. We don’t usually have the money. Anyone using ClamAV, should Trend Micro be successful, is potentially a target.

More About the Litigation
Barracuda went to federal court first, filing a lawsuit [PDF] against Trend Micro, seeking a declaratory judgment that Trend Micro’s ‘600 patent is invalid and that ClamAV does not infringe it anyhow, and Trend Micro filed an Answer with Counterclaims [PDF] to which Barracuda has replied [PDF]. Trend Micro accuses Barracuda of infringing its patent directly, contributorily, and by inducement. A declaratory judgment is the same thing Red Hat asked the court in Delaware for against SCO. You can read more about what a declaratory judgment is here, in an article I wrote way back in June of 2003, if you are curious, but the short version is that it’s asking the court to settle a controversy. It’s not asking for money, just that rights be established to settle whatever the controversy is.

Trend Micro then filed the complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC), complaining about patent infringement but essentially trying to block Barracuda from importing ClamAV on the basis of the alleged infringement, as best as I can make out. Not that Barracuda does import it, and in fact it specifically denies importing ClamAV in its Answer [PDF] to the IDC complaint, but that’s the Trend Micro claim. Barracuda’s CEO Dean Drako, in today’s press release says this:

“Barracuda Networks designs and manufactures all of the products in question in the United States. We believe that Trend Micro’s actions are a blatant abuse of the U.S. legal system. Since Trend Micro is a consumer of free and open source software we call on Trend Micro to drop these attacks.”

Here’s the essential Trend Micro allegation:

“In particular, as discussed above, ClamAV antivirus software which is included in Barracuda’s antivirus system is specifically designed to provide protection from computer viruses at the network gateway....

...upon information and belief, Barracuda’s AV systems contain open source antivirus software, known as ClamAV, that is specifically designed to protect against computer viruses at the network gateway...Further, upon information and belief, ClamAV software is written, at least in part, by ClamAV developer team members located in Europe and Australia. Thus, Barracuda imports software specifically designed to protect against viruses at the network gateway.”

High crime indeed, blocking viruses at the gateway. But Barracuda says it downloads ClamAV from servers in the US. Did you notice, though, how Trend Micro mentioned that ClamAV is Open Source? That is part of what makes me think this is yet another attack on the development method itself, this time trying to use its international development as the wedge. If you think about it, though, blocking FOSS antivirus solutions only makes the Internet more dangerous for everyone. It’s considered one of the very best in its league. And it’s obvious that FOSS projects can’t pay patent license royalties, so it’s a stranglehold maneuver.

Unlike commercial software vendors that typically have a defensive patent portfolio as a deterrent -- and thus maintain a kind of cold war truce against such suits -- or don’t mind trading and swapping money in reaction to such attacks, the Free and Open Source community is more vulnerable. I have never forgotten that Microsoft’s Bill Gates said in 2003, right after SCO sued IBM and began trash talking Linux, that Linux would find itself under legal attack for the next five years. And so it has proven to be. Partly, I believe, the goal was to tax the community, not just for the joy of getting the tax money, but to add the heavy costs of legal defense to FOSS development, so it couldn’t be free anymore, and so proprietary software would have more of a chance against it in any TCO analysis. The expense of legal defense alone could put a heavy tax on the community, and I am very glad to see Barracuda, which has benefited from ClamAV, be willing to take on the cost of defending it.

In other words, this is a serious situation. I think it’s another attempt to attack the FOSS development model and force those using such software to pay the proprietary dudes a tax. That’s the same dream that SCO started with, and Microsoft shares the dream. A lot of proprietary software folks realize the sun is setting on their business model, and they would like a piece of what is replacing it, without having to actually do anything to earn the money they want to collect, and patents are simply perfect for lazy incumbents. If ClamAV is not successfully defended, I think there may be an avalanche of this kind of attack, proprietary vendors looking for some silver to cross their palms from anyone using FOSS software.

Is it all coordinated? Maybe. But who cares? (Unless you are the EU Commission.) It’s serious, no matter who is behind it. Taxing or restricting Free and Open Source software based on questionable patents affects both security innovation and industry pricing of security products. And with more than one million unique IP addresses downloading updates of ClamAV from SourceForge daily, this attack potentially can impact a lot of people.

And let me add one final thing: I know some of us don’t use any antivirus on our GNU/Linux computers. I don’t myself. But businesses do. In many cases, they have to if they wish to fulfill certain legal requirements or if they wish certain kinds of business. So, instead of wasting energy arguing the point, let’s just get to work on the prior art. And if you have a copy of MIMEsweeper 1.0, please go to this page that Barracuda has set up for prior art submissions and tell them you have it in addition to mentioning it here in your comments.

Update: Don Marti has a story on LinuxWorld about the Barracuda request for help. He spoke with the attorney for Barracuda, James Yoon of Wilson, Sonsini, and with Eben Moglen of Software Freedom Law Center. Here’s what Moglen has to say:

“Eben Moglen, professor of law and legal history at Columbia Law School and chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center, says that his organization and other concerned users can act as a “Business Improvement District rent-a-cop” to help protect companies that work with free and open source software from so-called “patent trolls.”

“A troll that might have thought it was safe to take a bite out of a business in the past might find that the business is aligned with the free world,” he said in a phone interview. “We want the trolls to go and work in some other neighborhood.”

And Yoon, who intriguingly is both an IP attorney and in the past worked as an electrical engineer, talks about both the litigation scheduling and the ITC importation complaint:

Trend and Barracuda are in the discovery phase of the ITC case, but, Yoon says, “a scheduling order is not in place,” leaving time for Barracuda to introduce additional prior art. Drako says he believes the ITC filing is an abuse of the US legal system, since, although ClamAV has non-US contributors, the free antivirus software is maintained by Maryland-based Sourcefire, Inc., and Barracuda downloads and compiles ClamAV in the USA. Other imported parts that Trend cites in its complaints are standard PC hardware, “staple” components not specific to virus filtering, Drako says.

Update 2: Here are some more court filings that I know will help you focus on precisely what to look for in the way of prior art, the Joint Statement of Claim Construction and a list of all the precise ways Trend Micro thinks ClamAV infringes. Take a look:

* The Joint Claim Construction Statement [PDF]

* How Trend Micro thinks Barracuda Web Filter infringes

* How it thinks Barracuda Spam Firewall infringes 1

* Spam Firewall 2

* Spam Firewall 3

The Joint Claims Construction Statement is particularly useful, because it’s what the parties believe is in dispute. And they get together and decide what terms in the patent claims mean. For example, in this litigation, the parties have agreed that the word server means either software or a computer used as one, or more precisely, “A computer and/or software that performs services for other computers or programs”. But they can’t agree on what the word “file” means. If you look at the chart of disputed words and the evidence in support on page 8, perhaps you can figure out why each wishes to define it the way it does, but I was so far unable to solve that mystery, except that one has to assume that each wants the definition to match the claims and/or defenses against them. They are also in dispute over what a proxy server definition should be.
Not every claim listed in Trend Micro’s patent is still in dispute, so to be really useful here, it is worth slogging thorugh the details in that document. Happy prior art hunting!

Update 3: I had an idea regarding MIMEsweeper 1.0. Who, I asked myself, would be most likely to have a copy? What about security guys? For example, would the individual who reported this exploit to SecurityTracker not have a copy? I think he must. Also, a Groklaw member tells me that Clearswift offers the product still, at least on the German site, and there are forums, where you can ask questions, and since it’s frequented by both employees and customers, you might bump into an old-time programmer or sales guy there who has a clue, and he says most of them will speak English.

via Groklaw

Web Frameworks Roundup

2008-02-14T12:06:00.005-05:00

Many web developers are still not using web frameworks. Why? Probably because they're relatively new, so they probably haven't studied up on them yet.

What is a web framework? It's a suite of tools already written in your language of choice that follow the Model-View-Controller (MVC) paradigm. The idea being, there are certain parts of web sites and applications that you often find yourself re-writing for each and every new project. By using a web framework, you can turn web development into an object-oriented process (so that you can follow a somewhat-normal software development process) and adhere to principles like DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) and KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

Here is a current list of the top web frameworks:

Catalyst - The Perl web framework. Claim to fame: "No complicated object hierarchies" and you can use CPAN to grab the packages you need.
Django - (Pronounced Zhango) The Python web framework. Claim to fame: Automatic admin interface for your site and you don't need to know any SQL.
Ruby on Rails - The Ruby web framework. Claim to fame: "Convention over configuration" and most popular. Beware of the Pluralizer.
Symfony - The PHP web framework. Claim to fame: It's written in PHP, a language that most web developers are already familiar with.

Here's my pick of book recommendations to get you started:

Amazon.com Widgets

Starbucks to offer free wi-fi

2008-02-11T13:27:00.000-05:00

Under a new agreement with AT&T, Starbucks will now be offering two hours of free wi-fi to customers per day. It will cost $3.99 for every additional two hours. It's about time they ditched the outmoded T-Mobile model that didn't allow for any free wi-fi.

Yahoo's Geocities Should Use Yahoo's Hosting

2008-02-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

Sorry, this one was too good to pass up. Yahoo's free hosting service limits bandwidth per hour. But Yahoo's $11.99/month hosting service claims to offer unlimited bandwidth. So if Yahoo paid itself $11.99/month for its own Geocities hosting, Geocities wouldn't need the limits. lol!

NotchUp Beta Invites

2008-02-10T19:30:00.001-05:00

I have several NotchUp Beta invites to give out, comment if you want one.

Industries who stand to gain the most from social networking

2008-02-10T15:21:00.000-05:00

While social networking can touch every industry, some industries stand to gain more than others. Please comment with your ideas - I'll list a few of my thoughts below:

Information Technology, Internet, and all computer-related fields for obvious reasons
Political officers and organizations since they need the will of the people to hold power
Non-profits who need donations from several small donors to stay alive
Real Estate, because its all about the individual "realtors" - the bigger the ego, the more sales they make.
Entertainment - you need people to know about you to turn a profit.

Web Startup Resources on Facebook

2008-02-09T22:42:00.000-05:00

Startup Exchange - A group for startups, entrepreneurs and investors to exchange ideas and information. Currently hot: Connecting web startups with angel and VC investors.

Web 2.0 (Entrepreneurs) - This group is for Individuals interested in being part of the next web business boom. Anyone can join, we especially encourage those technically gifted individuals: programmers, hackers, developers, designers, etc. who are interested in joining up with new startups. Currently hot: Just about every web 2.0 CEO and founder is an officer of this group. There's a lot of good startup advice floating around on that group.

Web T.e - (T.e = Trust, Ideas and Ethics) is a group where members who share those three attributes can freely share their ideas and get feedback. Members can talk with great programmers and people with web experience. They can form partnerships and find dedicated and enthusiastic people for help. It's about "discussing and developing" with people you can trust. Currently hot: Getting feedback for your web 2.0 site.

Web Startups - This group is dedicated to all web entrepreneurs where you can share your new projects with a thech savvy community. Currently hot: Link to your startup, maybe find some job postings.

Join a Startup - Looking for the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the next Google? Then this is the place for you. Startups, are you looking for some very talented, dedicated, and driven individuals? Then this is the place for you too. Currently hot: Finding or listing a coding job.

Web Jobs - This group is created to help web industry Employers and Job seekers to find each other. Currently hot: Mobile website job posts.

Web 3.0 - Web 1.0: Black and White. Web 2.0: Color. Web 3.0: 3d. Currently hot: Discussing the 3D web.

Google Blasts MS Bid on Yahoo

2008-02-04T10:37:00.000-05:00

Google's CLO wrote a seething review of the MS bid on Yahoo. They're not too much interested in seeing a real competitor emerge, especially one with such links to the user desktop.

MTV/MySpace Presidential Debates Were a Success

2008-02-02T21:29:00.001-05:00

I was very pleased with tonight's MTV/MySpace debates. MySpace was little more than a marketing partner to MTV, but MTV was on top of it - comments and polls were integrated into the live show in nearly real-time. Some of them actually were hard hitting questions that a network like CNN is scared to show, as we saw when they tried the CNN/YouTube debates. The TRL-esque fans holding candidate signs outside the window were a bit strange, but I'll take that to the stuffy pre-approved audience members the other debate formats use any day.

Better yet, you can watch the full debate right now on MTV.com since they chopped it up into downloadable-segments as quickly as possible after it was live. The audio quality is excellent, and I would rate the video quality at air-to-antenna quality. Certainly worth watching or listening to if you missed it.

It was not quite the cage match Mashable made it sound like it would be - none of the candidates were actually debating each other - but it was a nice, candid town hall meeting between the four candidates who still matter and the demographic that matters in 2008 and all future elections: the youth - my iGeneration. The mainstream broadcast media would do well to emulate this format if they want to keep an audience in the years to come. It's strange for MTV News to be more credible than CNN in this election cycle.

PEAR channel discovery behind proxy

2008-02-01T16:50:00.000-05:00

Example: PHP Symfony Framework
1) Manually download the http://pear.symfony-project.com/channel.xml file somewhere
2) Run pear channel-add /path/to/channel.xml

Technology Evangelism

2008-01-29T13:12:00.000-05:00

The latest buzzword among web 2.0 experts is "evangelism." As is often the case in this industry, they get to pick their own title, and many are opting for "Web 2.0 Evangelist." This has been common for a few years now, but I noticed today that it's starting to spread out to more traditional desktop positions: Adobe now has an AIR Evangelist. AIR does revolve around Internet collaboration, but it's focused at RIA for the desktop. Since the desktop is becoming more web-enabled, and many see the future in a "Connected OS", can we expect to see more desktop software companies hiring evangelists for their latest projects? And are the web 2.0 evangelists to blame?

In case you don't know what the evangelist position is, it is typically an internal "marketing" position in or close to the IT department (or at least the CTO/CIO) with the duty of being the advocate for the use of the technology he or she is evangelizing - usually web 2.0 technologies. They're expected to be an "expert" in the use of that technology, someone able to see where it could help and where it could hurt.

What are your thoughts? Should the industry continue down the evangelism path or return to more traditional titles? Post a comment.

New Facebook App Hastens MySpace's Demise

2008-01-24T16:47:00.000-05:00

Are you tired of those MySpace friends that still haven't made the smart switch to Facebook? Now you can keep tabs on them from inside Facebook!

Fuser lets you check your MySpace messages, comments and bulletins without leaving Facebook. You can even display your MySpace comments as a separate wall on your Facebook profile.

The company is also working on a method for you to comment back and send MySpace messages from inside of Facebook, no release date on those features yet.

Yahoo to support OpenID

2008-01-17T11:38:00.001-05:00

On January 30th, Yahoo will begin supporting OpenID. What does this mean? You'll be able to use your Yahoo ID to log in to any site supporting OpenID.

Other major companies already supporting OpenID include Google (Just on Blogger), Plaxo, and AOL.

Sun buys MySQL for $1,000,000,000

2008-01-17T10:50:00.000-05:00

“We’re putting a billion dollars behind the M in LAMP,” said Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz as he announced the deal to the public at his blog this morning. Schwartz cited a main reason for the deal as the opportunity for a Fortune 500 vendor - Sun - to offer the kind of mission critical global support that up to now has given commercial vendors such as Oracle and Microsoft the edge.

It is clear that there is money to be made in Open Source projects.

Windows 2008: First Glance

2008-01-04T10:51:00.000-05:00

Here's my short analysis. The following are based on RC1. Features may change between now and R1.

Windows Server 2008 Key New Features

BitLocker Drive Encryption

Integrated Multipath I/O

IIS Health, Diagnostics, Performance Tools

Remote Differential Compression - Replicate files/directories over a WAN more efficiently (Better than rsync)

Server Roles - Streamlines server management by defining what a server is used for (ex: Web Server). Can download additional roles from MS by clicking "Check for New Roles."

Remote Server Administration Tools (Roles and Features Only)

Storage Manager for SANs

Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications - Basically gives you the ability to run Unix apps in a Windows environment. You'll need to recompile, but shouldn't need to change the code much.

Windows PowerShell (New, more robust scripting language)

Windows Server Backup

Windows System Resource Manager (Limit/prioritize CPU/Memory access at the service level)

Notes

VMWare tools installs fine from VI Client. Network card drivers won't show up until you install VMWare tools.

I'm aware some of these features were available in previous versions, but now they're brought to the front of the show.