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TechCrunch Poll: What Would Make You Switch Search Engines?

Although Google keeps gaining search engine market share, people’s loyalties are far from locked in. J.P. Morgan Internet analyst Imran Khan recently conducted a survey to see if Web consumers would be willing to switch search engines. He found that 62 percent would. The biggest reason that would cause them to change? Better search results (45 percent of all respondents said this would make them switch, and 48 percent of respondents who use Google as their main engine). The response

Jan. 9, 2009 03:38 PM

Pictures from Macworld Expo

These are pictures taken at the January 2009 Macworld Expo in San Francisco, California. I did not attend the unkeynote because I was at home watching Sponge Bob with my son, so there are no pictures from it. But there weren’t any big hardware announcements anyway. How’s this for irony? Steve Jobs didn’t give the keynote, and I was in the the Microsoft booth signing my new book, Reality Check. This is the first guy to get a book. And this is the first gal. Chris

Jan. 9, 2009 03:04 PM

Learn to Program

"If you can draw these simple forms: the ball, cone, cube, and cylinder, you can draw a real picture the very first time you try." Jon Gnagy was television's first art instructor. He broke scenes down into simple forms. He claimed that by that technique that you could learn to draw. Gnagy was a big influence on me, even though I never learned to draw. I am now designing a beginning programming course. My claim is that if you can break a problem down into simple

Jan. 9, 2009 11:24 AM

Ask your lawmaker: The Widget

This widget comes via Ask Your Lawmaker. (Thanks to Deborah Elizabeth Finn for the link.) [Tags: egov transparency everything_is_miscellaneous ]

Jan. 8, 2009 09:30 PM

My new solid state drive raid 0 array

Solid State Drives (SSD) are getting cheap and fast. So I’m putting 4 of them together in a Raid 0 array for a super fast MySQL server. The drives are just 30 gigs but cost only $75 each at NewEgg. Trying a 4k chunk size as these drives are unbuffered. I think that’s the [...]

Jan. 8, 2009 09:29 PM

Palm Pre a possibility?

I left a comment on jkOnTheRun about the new Palm Pre that was announced today at CES. First question: Can it tether? That is, can it play the role of the Cradlepoint router I just got, and the Sprint EVDO modem plugged into it? Are they going to be as locked down as Apple is with the iPhone? When and how can I get one to play with? This morning I couldn't imagine why anyone would even go to a Palm press conference, and now I'm on the edge of wanting one of these to try. I'm ready to get off my

Jan. 8, 2009 08:58 PM

SY + MEAP = P1

Sybase Positioned in Leaders Quadrant in Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms Magic Quadrant

Jan. 8, 2009 07:00 PM

Perspective on OSGi for the Enterprise

I once heard an OSGi guy from BEA (now Oracle) say that everyone thinks about OSGi for its deployment capabilities, but the real power is in its service model. I have mentioned this controversy before, i.e. whether or not the OSGi programming model is likely to become widely adopted in the enterprise. To a large extent this may well depend on how well the EEG does its job. This is one topic I'm hoping to explore during next week's meeting, i.e., which scenarios the release is good for, and whi

Jan. 8, 2009 06:05 PM

New Microsoft 2D barcode released at CES

In a surprise move Microsoft released a new 2-dimensional barcode format today at CES. Yes, a barcode. The lines that are on the bottom of your milk carton, when you scan it at the supermarket checkout. And no, today is not April Fool's. Two-dimensional barcodes are nothing new, and are most often seen on attendee badges at conferences or trade shows, but Microsoft's format is the first to use color and to be aimed at a specific reader device that most people already own: a cell phone with bui

Jan. 8, 2009 05:32 PM

Goals

Seth Godin reminded me about having goals. “Having goals is a pain in the neck,” he says, but “the people who get things done, who lead, who grow and who make an impact... those people have goals.” OK, good point. Here are Fog Creek Software’s goals for 2009, in no particular order: Ship FogBugz 7.0 for all platforms Ship Copilot Desktop for all platforms Release the next documentary about software development Build a kick-ass new product from the ground up with the summer inter

Jan. 8, 2009 02:58 PM

WebSockets travel to JFokus - Stockholm, Sweden

About 2 years ago I had a conversation with Mattias Karlsson, one of the main brains behind JFokus - a Swedish Java conference. He asked me if I would be interested in speaking at the conference. Unfortunately, timing wasn't right and we decided to postpone till a later opportunity. Well, 2 years have gone and JFokus has grown as a conference and is now one of the leading Java user group conferences in Scandinavia. Here is a 10 day weather forecast for Stockholm, Sweden Both John and I w

Jan. 8, 2009 01:56 PM

Having problems with English

A twitter with a nickname gnat posted an interesting statement, which I didn't understand. I don't recall when was the last time I could not understand English. Here's what he posted: Normally MacWorld is like fish spawning: single s

Jan. 8, 2009 10:35 AM

Bye bye 2008 and here it comes 2009

Happy new year to everybody. Continuing an initiative that I started one year ago, I'd like to draw a summary of my 2008 and express my intended plans for 2009, just in case this can be inspiring for other people...

Jan. 8, 2009 09:59 AM

Guide to Service Virtualization in Enterprise Application Development - Part Four: When No Virtualization is in Use

This is the fourth post in our six part series on, Service Virtualization in Enterprise Application Development. The series covers how service virtualization complements hardware virtualization with the ability to reduce cost and increase business agility across the entire software lifecycle. The complete white paper can be down loaded at Service Virtualization in Enterprise Application Development. In this post we look at a reference architecture when no virtualization is in use to set the st

Jan. 8, 2009 09:54 AM

To-Do lists

Q: How does one get things done? A: One makes a list. I've been looking all week for a Task list, or To-Do list that really works. I was using Things, before they released their 1.0 product, but they put it out last week, and it was $49.95. That's too much -- to do lists are not a $50 problem. They're maybe a $10 problem, or a $20 problem, and I would conceivably pay $50 if they had a version of it in the cloud, as well as the desktop and iPhone apps. No webapp, no can do. I used to do t

Jan. 8, 2009 07:36 AM

CEP as a “BI Megatrend”?

Sometime one has to take what one reads on the web with a liberal pinch of salt. I was amused to read on Intelligent Enterprise in the last few days that: CEP is a “BI Megatrend” CEP is a “marketing device” CEP to be provided by IBM’s latest (rule engine) technology acquisition - presumably either alongside, or replacing, their “Appsoft” (per the article) acquisition… [*1] The first article is the most interesting: the BI megatrends also of inter

Jan. 7, 2009 06:04 PM

Web 2.0 in 2009: What's Out, What's In

As a CTO, my boss tells me I am entrusted with ‘understanding market forces and business drivers to drive JackBe's technical vision and strategy’. So I am prone to trend-watching and predictions. In fact, I like predictions. And I think my 'Web 2.0 in 2008: What's Out, What's In' predictions were fairly good.I should note that I think the end of the year is a fairly arbitrary time to consider ‘what’s next, what’s hot, and what’s dead-on-arrival’. After all, the Web 2.0 world ch

Jan. 7, 2009 10:46 AM

ICOODB 2009 call for papers.

I would encorage you to consider submitting a paper and/or a tutorial to the second International Conference on Object Databases (ICOODB), which will take place on July 1-3, 2009, at ETH, Zurich, in Switzerland.As you may know, ICOODB 2009 is the second in a series of international conferences aimed at promoting the exchange of information and ideas between members of the object database community. (Last year ICOODB was in Berlin).A key feature of this year conference is its goal to bring

Jan. 7, 2009 06:51 AM

A flash from the past - Seattle Speakeasy

This morning while walking the dog, I was overcome with a flash from the past - a memory I have of being in a Seattle Speakeasy circa 1998. Ah, those were the days

Jan. 7, 2009 06:41 AM

SY + MEAP = P1

Sybase Positioned in Leaders Quadrant in Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms Magic Quadrant

Jan. 6, 2009 11:51 AM

Cfengine Launches Commercial Open Source Company

Starting in 2009 popular, autonomic configuration management tool, Cfengine will be commercially supported by a company formed by Cfengine author, Mark Burgess. Cfengine has a laundry list of brand names that are using their software –AT&T, Bloomberg, IBM, Nokia, and many more. I suspect that many of them would pay for commercial support: Here’s the news from the newly formed Cfengine AS: Following 5 years of research and development under the technical direction of its long time aut

Jan. 6, 2009 10:55 AM

Adaptive Path’s 2009 Events - So many options!

For the first time in Adaptive Path’s history, we’ve released our entire slate of in-person events for the year at the beginning of the year. (I say “in-person” because we’re still working on our virtual seminar lineup). I know it’s going to be a strange year for many folks, budget-wise, but we’re confident we have events that can satisfy various abilities of spend. And if you use the promotional code FOPM, you’ll get an extra 15% off! I’m mo

Jan. 5, 2009 07:16 PM

How can Adobe make learning ActionScript 3 easier?

As you may have noticed from some of my recent posts (here and here), I have been spending some time lately thinking about the ActionScript 2 to ActionScript 3 transition. I am working on some stuff to make this transition easier (especially for non-developers), but I wanted to make a quick post and get the community’s input. How can we make the transition from ActionScript 2 to ActionScript 3 easier? I am specifically interested in input from anyone who does not consider themselves hardco

Jan. 5, 2009 03:14 PM

Are you using Footprint project?

If yes, please register that at Ohloh.

Jan. 5, 2009 02:00 PM

Top Read 2008

2008 Top Read Blog Entries! The 2008 calendar year was an exceptional year for activity on my Blog site. User activity averaged over 50,000 per month in the latter part of the year and the blog site itself recorde

Jan. 4, 2009 08:12 PM

Joho the Blog

Ask your lawmaker: The Widget

This widget comes via Ask Your Lawmaker. (Thanks to Deborah Elizabeth Finn for the link.) [Tags: egov transparency everything_is_miscellaneous ]

Posted: Jan. 8, 2009 09:30 PM

Spite marketing

I’m on a mailing list where one particular member is so abusive of those who disagree with him — which includes most of the people on the list — that reading his latest post reminded me to donate to the ACLU. In fact, I’d like the ACL

Posted: Jan. 8, 2009 11:42 AM

Reform the FCC

There are lots of ideas, resources, and discussion about how to reform the FCC at the aptly named Reforming the FCC site put together by Public Knowledge and Silicon Flatirons. [Tags: fcc net_neutrality ]

Posted: Jan. 7, 2009 10:10 AM

Daily (intermittent) Open-Ended Puzzle: Wikipedia body parts

Einstein’s brain has its own Wikipedia entry. There is in fact a Wikipedia category for articles about famous body parts. Without referring to that page, what body parts of which individuals do you think deserve their own Wikipedia entries? [Ta

Posted: Jan. 6, 2009 03:20 PM

Ada Lovelace Day

Suw Charman-Anderson has started a pledge at PledgeBank that asks 1,000 people to agree to blog about a woman in technology on the birthday of Ada Lovelace, March 24. [Tags: ada_lovelace women_in_technology ]

Posted: Jan. 6, 2009 03:10 PM

Vague research question: Atoms vs. bits

How far back does the “atoms vs. bits” idea go? Did anyone talk about it before Nicholas Negroponte in “Being Digital“? Some specifications of what I’m looking for: - It has to be actual bits, i.e., binary units of inf

Posted: Jan. 6, 2009 09:47 AM

Doc Searls - Washington Post photographer

Not that Doc needs validation by the mainstream media, but I still think it’s pretty cool that the Washington Post has snagged one of his photos off of Flickr to illustrate their article about Dean Elena Kagan being selected as Obama’s So

Posted: Jan. 5, 2009 02:26 PM

Alternative voices

Habib Battah has an op-ed in Al Jazeera about the disparity between the American media coverage of the Israeli invasion and the Arab world’s. And there’s always Global Voices if you want to hear what bloggers in the region are saying. [T

Posted: Jan. 5, 2009 09:57 AM

Tags made smarter, easier

Sarah Perez at Read Write Web has a good post about a service that “understands” the meaning of of your tags (Zigtag) and another that suggests tags based on its analysis of Wikipedia (faviki). These services — I haven’t tried th

Posted: Jan. 5, 2009 09:23 AM

Getting past the self-reflexive beginning

A tweet from Jeff Jarvis: My son says his problem with Twitter is too much Twittering about Twitter. Judging by today, he’s right. And I just added to it. That used to be the case with blogging when it first started. Every other post (includi

Posted: Jan. 4, 2009 11:50 AM