5 Days Ago - A few weeks ago I received a Google Wave invitation from my friend David Knopf (after publicly begging for one in my post Hoping to Surf the Google Wave). Since then, I've had a chance to use it and I've seen the good, the bad and the ever-present potential of the tool. While it does have... (Read More)

32 Days Ago - I'm not a web developer by trade, but I visit web sites all the time, and as journalist I'm looking for a couple of key things. First of all, I want to find your press page and a press contact. Short of that I want to find an email address. Note that I don't want to find a form, which could as far... (Read More)

34 Days Ago - I have watched you on the shore Standing by the ocean's roar Do you love me, do you surfer girl ~Beach Boys, Surfer Girl Google Wave invitations went out last week to 100,000 lucky people and I didn't get one. I'm stuck on the shore line while the fortunate few are riding the first Google... (Read More)

Aug 27th, 2009 - You have to give Sony credit, they are really trying new strategies to wrestle eBook marketshare from the Amazon Kindle. This month they announced several new editions of the Sony Reader, including the brand new Reader Daily Edition, which should be in stores in time for the holiday shopping... (Read More)

Aug 21st, 2009 - In a move that could only be characterized as surprising, Sony announced last week that it was going to be using the open ePub eBook standard, which in theory should enable Sony Reader users to access and use any books created around the standard. Sony Readers will also be able to read Adobe PDFs... (Read More)

Jul 31st, 2008 - Alfresco released Alfresco Labs (Beta) 3 today and with it announced a new capability that enables businesses to leverage Microsoft Sharepoint functionality without buying additional Sharepoint licenses. Sound too good to be true? It’s not, and what has allowed Alfresco to do this is the 2004 EU... (Read More)

5 Days Ago - Firefox can finally orient itself, at least in terms of iPhones and MacBooks. Mozilla's latest browser, Firefox 3.6 beta 1, can now talk to accelerometers such as those in many Apple devices, thanks to orientation event objects introduced in the new Gecko 1.9.2 presentation engine at the browser's... (Read More)

11 Days Ago - At the risk of coming off like TV's "Mad Men," Amazon Web Services really are New and Improved. The company today announced the addition of Amazon Relational Database Service, giving users of Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) access to a virtual instance of MySQL. That's the New part.... (Read More)

21 Days Ago - One might have titled this story "Beware of government bearing gifts." We should be exceedingly wary whenever law makers begin dabbling with something that's been working exceedingly well for decades. Today that thing is the Internet, perhaps the least-regulated industry in the U.S. today. This... (Read More)

27 Days Ago - With all the libraries available that have emerged, Java and Ajax applications practically build themselves these days. This week Java tool maker Instantiations added support for Ext GWT to GWT Designer 7.2, the latest version of its Eclipse-based drag-and-drop GUI-building environment that can be... (Read More)

Sep 10th, 2009 - They say it ain't over until the fat lady sings, well it looks like this particular Opera story is far from over folks no matter what some might tell you. Perhaps the most famous Norwegian export since the Vikings, Opera the web browser has certainly lost favour with the technology press. Once upon... (Read More)

Sep 14th, 2009 - According to the 2009 Web Application Security Report from NTA Monitor, 90% of all web applications have at least one medium risk vulnerability and 27% have at least one high risk vulnerability. Apparently the most common vulnerabilities are those which involve SQL injection, cross-site scripting... (Read More)

Apr 8th, 2009 - Just as the excitement started to hot up, first with the news that the controversial and increasingly popular legal free streaming music service Spotify was to open up with the release of a third party developer API, and then with the actual announcement of the availability of Libspotify itself, so... (Read More)

Aug 4th, 2009 - This is just odd, for too many reasons. A file sharer has been fined $675,000 for downloading illegal music. He is a student. People have offered him money because they think it's an unreasonable amount to pay. He has turned them down. Why do I think this is odd? Well, one by one: the amount is... (Read More)

Apr 20th, 2009 - It's probably a little early to be looking for implications of Oracle buying Sun (no, it's official, here's the press release). They've only just confirmed it's happening, and as one of the journalists who covered Novell buying Lotus many years ago I can confirm things aren't done until they're... (Read More)

Mar 6th, 2009 - Following yesterday's interesting events - in which the story to which I referred changed three times and was then taken down within two hours of my linking to it - here's something a little lighter for the weekend. A family is auctioning its talents and above all its availability to endorse... (Read More)

Mar 31st, 2008 - I am not an easily shockable person. Anyone who knows me, anyone who has seen me, will understand this. Indeed, other than the usual trio of sexual or racial abuse and mindless violence it takes a lot to drop my jaw in shame and despair while browsing the web. However, a bunch of numbnut griefers... (Read More)

Apr 29th, 2009 - The bad guys of the IT business are always looking for the most effective ways to infect the innocent Internet user, and increasingly that means turning to commonly used web browser plug-ins such as Flash or PDF readers. A couple of years ago we were reporting critical vulnerabilities for all Adobe... (Read More)

Jul 29th, 2009 - A company has been awarded a patent for providing episodic media downloads, which essentially gives it a patent on all forms of podcasting. The company, VoloMedia, calls itself the "leading provider of advertising and reporting solutions for portable media, extending the reach of video and audio... (Read More)

May 29th, 2009 - Busy this weekend? President Barack Obama and his IT staff are asking for ideas through June 3 to help make government more open. The call for ideas first went out on May 21. So far, there's 1171. People can vote thumbs up or thumbs down on the ideas. "Then on June 3rd, the most compelling... (Read More)

Jul 2nd, 2009 - This post has nothing to do with Michael Jackson, his death, his kids, his Neverland Ranch or anything related to him. It has everything to do with my need for a virtual laboratory where I can test virtual machines, write about them or produce other documentation about them without a significant... (Read More)

May 23rd, 2009 - Jason Perlow and I had the pleasure of interviewing Kickfire CEO Bruce Armstrong for the May 22nd episode of Frugal Friday to discuss the Kickfire appliance. The Kickfire appliance is a Linux-based, rack-mountable, database appliance tuned for Data Warehousing. Here's the real scoop: Starting at... (Read More)

May 14th, 2009 - Well, well, well...Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO added Virtual Iron to his collection today. Congratulations, Larry. When is Oracle going bankrupt? Every time that I've seen a company acquire too many other companies in a short time period, they always end up in the dustbin. Oracle just acquired Sun... (Read More)

Apr 21st, 2009 - Will the tech sector lead an economic turnaround? Forbes.com thinks so. This week, Peter C. Beller writes that Monday’s IBM revenues numbers and the fallout from the proposed Oracle and Sun Microsystems could lay the groundwork for an economic rebound. I’ll get to the IBM numbers in a moment,... (Read More)

Apr 17th, 2007 - Just as it seemed that Linux users (especially 64-bit users) would finally be able to enjoy streaming content with a minimum of hassle, Microsoft's new Silverlight software promises to throw a wrench in the works. Because of sites like Google Video and Youtube, Flash video has become a common means... (Read More)