Archives for August, 2005
Nooked Blog: Nooked – Influencer survey
Sunday, August 28th, 2005
An “Influencer” survey conducted either for or on behalf of Nooked (an RSS markedting company) found that these influencers were very aware of RSS and used it a great deal. Fair and true enough, but does this feel to anyone else like a marketing department’s ham-fisted response to the Nielsen “RSS…um, wha?” survey that we [...]
Ex-MS CTO dismisses patent problems
Friday, August 26th, 2005
In an article entitled Ex-MS CTO dismisses patent problems, Builder UK quotes Nathan Myhrvold: “Patent litigation represents only 3 percent of federal lawsuits and there has been a steady decline in the number of lawsuits filed per patent, Myhrvold said. ” Which I’m sure is true, but is only one take on the numbers. Another [...]
Basecamp: Now Automatically Coding Your Projects?
Thursday, August 25th, 2005
Based on a quote from the CNET.com article Pearl Jam to offer ‘bootleg’ downloads, it appears that 37 signals’ Basecamp — a really excellent project management tool — may have achieved what project manages have been asking for since time began: you put in your project plan, and then Basecamp automatically develops it for you… [...]
Urge to post on asspatents rising…fading…rising…
Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
Following (and posting on) the vagaries of the US patent system gets a little wearing after a while…outrage sags into scornful disbelief, which in turn fades into a fatalistic apathy. But then you get one of the particularly egregious perversions of the original intent of the system and the whole cycle starts over again… While [...]
RSS Version 3: Because There Aren’t Enough Competing Standards
Friday, August 19th, 2005
I’m sure everyone has already seen the RSS Version 3 Homepage, whether via Slashdot or one of the other million sources that have pointed to it. From the homepage: Welcome to the RSS Version 3 Homepage. This site strives to create expanded and complete standards for syndication of online content – more specifically, it aims [...]
People, Cookies (Me and My Data)
Thursday, August 18th, 2005
Fred Wilson has clearly spent some time thinking about cookies, and consistently comes down in the cookies’ usefulness to users outweighs their drawbacks camp. I don’t disagree, exactly, but nor can I say that I wholeheartedly agree. Couple of things: 1. Browser cookies are the best commonly available approach to handling certain issues of persistent [...]
The Asspatent Series: United States Patent Application 0050177789
Friday, August 12th, 2005
United States Patent Application: 0050177789 is Microsoft’s filing for ” Method and apparatus for visually emphasizing numerical data contained within an electronic document”…which would be “highlighting the numbers, whether in their alpha or numeric forms, in a word processing document.” Asspatent. Asspatent, asspatent, asspatent. Though it does point to an interesting omission (as far as [...]
Blogfodder: Sick, Work, Vacation
Thursday, August 11th, 2005
I dropped off the face of the earth for about four days due to a 101 degree fever that I then thoughtfully passed along to my seven month old daughter; both of us doing rather better now. The past two days I’ve been trying to catch up on work and possibly even get ahead a [...]
