My Archives: April 2001
Monday, April 30, 2001
O'Reilly Network: Oh My! Netscape [April 30, 2001]
My.Netscape, a personal portal sporting hundreds of channels carrying content from individual providers, has shed its free content and become YAM*, Yet Another My.*. In the process, they also broke RSS 0.91.
Posted by Elmer @ 10:20 AM EST [Link]
Internet Week > Infrastructure > Google Defies Dotcom Downturn > April 27, 2001
While other e-businesses are cutting back, Google is increasing its infrastructure as fast as it can, doubling the size of its server farm in the last 10 months, to 8,000 systems.
Google uses Linux in a massive parallel configuration to handle all of the PCs as a single machine.Posted by Elmer @ 09:21 AM EST [Link]
Sunday, April 29, 2001
A Private Home Network LG #65
? In order to prepare for the happy day in the future when permanent, high-speed connections to the Internet will be offered in my area, I decided it was a good idea to start investigating security issues. The results were shocking.The first shock came from looking at my long-neglected /var/log/syslog* files. A few 'refused connect from' entries. One 'connect from' to ftp which apparently succeeded. Oops. Dial-up Internet users are not overlooked by the crackers after all. And my security is not bullet-proof. Better to spend some time really looking at security. And to try to understand something of it this time. So this meant reading books, FAQ's, HOWTO's, and a lot of articles on the Web; and doing some experiments.
Posted by Elmer @ 04:46 PM EST [Link]
[fmII] - Detailed release information - Helpdesk::Mail 0.6
The Helpdesk::Mail System is a Perl application intended to assist Helpdesks and Support Centers in organizing their email communication with their customers. Especially if there is one email address and several people who reply to those emails and answer questions, Helpdesk::Mail can come in handy. It is not just another webmail application; one can assign a "user-id" for an e-mail (e.g. an account number) to track how often one user asks for help.Posted by Elmer @ 04:42 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, April 28, 2001
dack.com ... Simple Good. Complex Bad.
Keep an eye on this.Posted by Elmer @ 11:19 AM EST [Link]
dack.com > web > web economy bullshit generator
Now this is funny. A little bit 'o JS that generates a perfectly fine bit 'o BS.Posted by Elmer @ 11:03 AM EST [Link]
The Webby Awards : 2001 Nominees
Posted by Elmer @ 07:50 AM EST [Link]
Posted by Elmer @ 07:40 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, April 26, 2001
Controversial Arizona cybersecurity plan passes first hurdle | Computerworld News & Features Story
The Arizona House of Representatives yesterday approved a bill that would establish the first state-level IT infrastructure protection center in the U.S., a plan that some analysts say could be a model for a national sensor grid designed to help coordinate cyberdefense efforts across the country.But while many security experts agreed that a national tripwire is needed to uncover serious vulnerabilities that could be used to attack corporate and government systems, some said the plan being considered in Arizona faces significant political and organizational hurdles. For example, the state's own CIO spoke out against the measure last week.
Posted by Elmer @ 09:10 PM EST [Link]
InternetWeek > Ellis Isle: Uptime Comeuppance > Apr. 26, 2001
Between 1892 and 1924, nearly 23 million immigrants entered the United States through Ellis Island and the Port of New York. Today, an underpowered Web site promising access to records on those individuals isn't nearly as welcoming: It denied access to the vast majority of the 50 million people who hit the site in its first six hours, and it continues to turn people away in huge numbers.
Designers of the site grossly under-estimated 2 things: the amount of traffic to the site and the amount of hardware needed to server up info from the over 1 terabyte Oracle database. Relying on MS web server probably wasn't a good idea either.
In any situation, the more hardware, the better. And since most Americans have Internet access and most of them had ancestors come through Ellis Island, that would mean millions of folks would be interested in the site. Not a tough equation.Posted by Elmer @ 09:07 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, April 25, 2001
ArsDigita: From Start-Up to Bust-Up
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If you've been hanging out around courthouses in Delaware lately, you may have heard about some legal acrimony involving ArsDigita's venture capitalists versus the ArsDigita co-founders. This letter explains how it came about (from the perspective of one of the defendants).
Note that 99 percent of the information in this document is irrelevant to the lawsuit. The lawsuit has to do with the rights of the shareholders to control management based on some technical points of law and contract. In other words, the questions of who is best qualified to run the company and whether business decisions have been correct are largely irrelevant.
Posted by Elmer @ 03:04 PM EST [Link]
when is Linux's birthday?
A page chronicaling the birth of Linux as told by the posts of Linus hiomself to comp.os.minix.Posted by Elmer @ 12:45 PM EST [Link]
angryCoder - Speak your mind...
Interesting.Posted by Elmer @ 08:07 AM EST [Link]
LJ 80: PHP4 and PostgreSQL: Building Serious Web Applications with Open-Source
The best of the open-source breed is PHP, a scripting language that could be likened to Perl; and PostgreSQL, a powerful object-relational database. When you put PHP and PostgreSQL together, you can build anything from a simple guest book to a vast web-based accounting application. PHP provides the brains while Postgres provides the brawn.Posted by Elmer @ 08:04 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, April 24, 2001
Enterprise Linux Today - IBM Acquires Informix Database Products for $1 Billion
IBM and Informix Corporation have announced that IBM will acquire the assets of Informix Software, Informix's database business, for $1 billion.Under the terms of the deal, Informix's business operations will be integrated into IBM's data management division. IBM will continue to market and sell Informix database products, and the companies said they plan to continue providing support and updates to existing Informix customers, which include Verizon, Deutsche Telecom, Sears, and Sabre.
Posted by Elmer @ 10:39 AM EST [Link]
ZDNet: eWEEK: XML schema catches heat
After more than two years of development, the World Wide Web Consortium could be only weeks away from releasing its long-awaited XML Schema specification. But despite its release, the specification, which is designed to automate data exchange between companies, is coming under fire.Now in the final review phase by W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee, the specification, according to critics, is far too complex—so complex that it has driven several XML experts to create alternative and lighter-weight schemas. Furthermore, some W3C insiders are even calling for future versions to be incompatible with this first release so as not to repeat what they say are the flaws of the first version.
Posted by Elmer @ 08:34 AM EST [Link]
Monday, April 23, 2001
PCWorld.com - Enterprise Technology: Peer-to-Peer Gets Down to Business
Have you been wondering what to do with all the processing power, surplus hard disk space, and high-speed Internet connections you've built up over the past few years? Take a clue from Napster. The renegade MP3-swapping site may be on the ropes, but the technology it uses--peer-to-peer networking--is all the rage.In a peer-to-peer network, powerful client PCs take on the role of servers, enabling direct communication among systems that stands to lower IT costs and raise corporate productivity. In this month's Enterprise Technology, we explore nascent peer-to-peer solutions for corporate networks. Are they any better than current client/server applications?
Posted by Elmer @ 09:17 AM EST [Link]
Friday, April 20, 2001
ZDNet: Sm@rt Partner - Samba 2.2: your way to Windows file/print services
Is the cost of Microsoft Windows client access licenses (CAL) bringing you down? Worry not-the Samba team (http://www.samba.org) has improved its award-winning Server Message Block (SMB) Samba 2.2 Windows-compatible file/print service for Unix systems.Samba has always done exceptionally well at enabling MS-DOS and Windows systems to use Unix file/print servers exactly as if they were NT servers. This new version enhances its basic abilities by enabling a Samba server to act as an authentication source for both W2K and NT clients.
Posted by Elmer @ 09:23 AM EST [Link]
ZDNet: eWEEK: Intel slashes price of 1.7GHz Pentium 4
Intel moves to agressively slash prices on P4's. Imagine 1.5 Ghz P4's at about $1000!Posted by Elmer @ 09:19 AM EST [Link]
CERT to sell security threat information | Computerworld News & Features Story
CERT had previously supplied its early warning information only to the Defense Department and the General Services Administration, but under the new plan, it will offer those alerts, usually 45 days before they are released to the public, to companies that are members of the alliance, said a CERT spokesman. The center had provided its early warnings only to the government because it's a government-funded organization and to avoid releasing inflammatory or inaccurate information, a spokesman said.
Posted by Elmer @ 09:16 AM EST [Link]
Be a freelance Web builder - Web Building - CNET.com
Posted by Elmer @ 09:13 AM EST [Link]
Workers mired in e-mail wasteland
Yet another blurb about a Gartner report citing the ioncrease in 'junk' email as sapping productivity.Posted by Elmer @ 09:08 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, April 19, 2001
Study outlines the cost of internal spam | Computerworld News & Features Story
) An upcoming study suggests that getting rid of the gossip, jokes and other unproductive e-mail from colleagues can save up to 30% of the time an employee spends reading e-mail.
While both the government and Internet service providers (ISPs) are concerned about incoming spam, the report by research firm Gartner Inc. suggests that companies should first look in their own back yards.
Posted by Elmer @ 09:00 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
InternetWeek > In Depth > Content-Specific Security > Sandbox The Hackers > Apr. 17, 2001
IT managers can take every precaution-blocking inappropriate and suspicious Web sites, rejecting Visual Basic scripts or other Internet code and scanning each e-mail attachment for viruses-but that won't stop hackers from sneaking unknown viruses and sophisticated code past a company's antivirus and content-filtering gateways. Today's popular content-security technology ferrets out only known viruses or specified content.It's this fear of the unknown that's starting to scare some IT managers into adding behavior-blocking, or "sandboxing," technology, as a last line of defense at the desktop. Behavior blocking prevents malicious code from doing something it's not authorized to do. If a downloaded executable program tries to erase the PC's hard drive or copy its address book, for instance, the software stops it cold. The desktop is the final frontier for many of these malicious attacks because that's where Internet code, such as macros, scripts, executables, screen savers, plug-ins, Java and ActiveX apps, typically run.
Posted by Elmer @ 08:58 AM EST [Link]
Monday, April 16, 2001
News: Static over online ads silences Web radio
Clear Channel Communications, Emmis Communications and several other large broadcasting companies turned off many or all of their Web streams Tuesday, citing ongoing negotiations with the record industry and advertisers.
Online listeners at Clear Channel stations ranging from Los Angeles' KFI Talk Radio to San Francisco's popular KMEL hip-hop station were given a terse apology instead of the expected live radio stream. The note cited "issues regarding demands for additional fees for the streaming of recorded music and radio commercials.""We are working with...our advertisers and the Recording Industry Association of America to find a solution to those problems as quickly as possible so that we can resume our streaming," the note said.
I saw this coming. The mega-corporations that derive large amounts of revenue from recorded music will not sit down and shut until they have co-opted every possible channel for the distribution of their music. It really has little to do with the artists and everything to do with the control of distribution.Posted by Elmer @ 03:08 PM EST [Link]
PCWorld.com - IBM Drops Price, Boosts Quality of Flat-Panels
Posted by Elmer @ 03:00 PM EST [Link]
SecurityPortal - Weekly Linux Security Digest - 2001/04/09 to 2001/04/15
Posted by Elmer @ 08:54 AM EST [Link]
ZDNet: eWEEK: PSInet finds itself in fight of its life
Like the dot-com firms and application service providers that are their clients, second-tier Web hosting companies are now feeling the effects of the high-tech shakeout.PSInet Inc., for example, is in the midst of a massive corporate yard sale, and has conducted several rounds of layoffs in recent months. With about 4,500 U.S. employees, $250 million in cash and a stock price that's dropped from more than $34 dollars to just 19 cents in the past year, PSInet officials have said that bankruptcy is now a realistic possibility.
Posted by Elmer @ 08:38 AM EST [Link]
ZDNet: eWEEK: eBay faces uphill battle with hosted storefronts
Good article pointing the difficulties of hosting storefronts for 'real' businesses. Certainly e-Bay may do weel with small mom-and-pop organizations.Posted by Elmer @ 08:36 AM EST [Link]
Internet Week > Advertising > DoubleClick on Profits: Never Mind > April 13, 2001
Online advertising network DoubleClick Inc. indicated after market close Thursday that it expects to lose between 18 cents to 22 cents a share this year after certain one-time items, reversing financial guidance it gave in January that it would post a profit of between 7 cents and 9 cents a share in 2001.
Will this mean the beginning of the end for the banner ad?Posted by Elmer @ 08:25 AM EST [Link]
Saturday, April 14, 2001
CNN.com - Travel - Tree-dwelling fat cat draws gift-bearing tourists - April 12, 2001
You may not want to stand right uder the tree after meal time.Posted by Elmer @ 12:00 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, April 11, 2001
ZDNet: eWEEK: SharePoint's a hit
MIcrosoft ventures into the knowledge management arena with Sharepoint.Posted by Elmer @ 10:43 AM EST [Link]
Monday, April 9, 2001
CNET to buy Gartner unit for $23 million - Tech News - CNET.com
Technology information network CNET Networks said Monday that it has agreed to acquire TechRepublic from technology research firm Gartner for $23 million in cash and common stock.
I hope they don't mick it up. I like TechRepublic.Posted by Elmer @ 01:11 PM EST [Link]
NBC to take NBCi back in-house - Tech News - CNET.com
NBC said it will pull the online portal back into its operations and shut down NBCi's operations in San Francisco. The broadcasting company is currently a minority shareholder in NBCi, with approximately 38.6 percent of the company's outstanding shares."The company of 339 people will not exist as it is today," said NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Tompkins, adding that some employees will remain. "We will retain parts of what NBCi is right now, but I don't know if we will retain the NBCi name."
Posted by Elmer @ 01:09 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, April 7, 2001
SoapWare.Org : xmlStorageSystem
xmlStorageSystem is an Internet storage system for XML documents that's programmable via XML-RPC and SOAP 1.1.
Posted by Elmer @ 10:54 AM EST [Link]
XMLRPC-EPI
A standalone C API for XML-RPC
xmlrpc-epi-php is a PHP C extension that utilizes xmlrpc-epi to provide a high performance, easy to use, php native interface to xmlrpc. There is no complex type API to use. Instead, manipulate your values as you normally would, then call a single encode routine to translate that data into xml.
Posted by Elmer @ 10:50 AM EST [Link]
Friday, April 6, 2001
Church of the Swimming Elephant
Posted by Elmer @ 04:26 PM EST [Link]
BrainBuzz.com - Unleash the Power of CSS
CSS gives you great power over the presentation of your web
page content. It saves you time in the creation and
maintenance of your web sites. By using style sheets, you
can redefine how HTML elements display in the browser.
Posted by Elmer @ 07:31 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, April 5, 2001
Law-Lib: (no subject)
Actually, I think this post from 12/92 was my very first.Posted by Elmer @ 02:28 PM EST [Link]
Law-Lib: WIN v. boolean
This may well be my very first post to a email list from April 1993. Note the return address of ermaster@suvm.bitnet.Posted by Elmer @ 02:10 PM EST [Link]
SoapWare.Org : A Busy Developer's Guide to SOAP 1.1
This document describes a subset of SOAP 1.1 that forms a basis for easy interoperation between different environments. When we refer to "SOAP" in this document we're referring to this subset of SOAP, not the full SOAP 1.1 specification.
Posted by Elmer @ 08:45 AM EST [Link]
News: EBay storefronts to challenge Amazon, Yahoo
For eBay, auctions are just the beginning. The company will soon move on a new leg of its strategy to become the Internet's dominant commerce company with eBay Storefronts - an e-commerce hosting service for businesses that want to set up standard online stores to sell products with fixed prices in addition to auction-based listings.
An executive with knowledge of eBay's plans said the launch of eBay Storefronts is about two or three months away. Meg Whitman, eBay's president and CEO, has made the storefront project a "top priority" for the company, according to the source. And it's a central part of eBay's long-term goal to rival Amazon.com and Yahoo! as the biggest Internet commerce company in the world.
Posted by Elmer @ 08:34 AM EST [Link]