Open Economy

"All-Access Economy" gets at the open world of technology. It talks mainly about the openness of internet standards and how anyone can build a presence on the internet using common software [site creating tools, browsers, etc.]. And the example is salesforce.com which is a web based service to handle enterprise management: You used to have to install proprietary software, but now you just need a browser and an account at some web service company to get the same "service."

I think it is the way to go but I don't have any bright ideas on what to get started on, as my own business....

Freedbacking: automating user feedback

"Are You 'Freedbacking'?" Software developers are looking for (free) feedback and automating such feedback is always a nice idea but it comes at a price: too much noise and duplicate feedback to fiilter through. Opening up to spam is another troubling possibility.

Besides, getting feedback on minor irritant is one thing, asking for visionary changes could be asking for Pandora's box.

Firefox extensions and XUL

"Your First Firefox Extension" has a simple intro to XUL programming.

Functional Programming: to do

"Functional Programming for the rest of us" is one of those which I'll have to read when I get a "round-tuit."

Virtualization to the next level

I've mentioned about virtualization at the OS level and even at applications install/run level but true virtualization need to be taken by the individual applications such that both OS changes and app version changes will not affect the data itself.

What I mean is that data is almost always looked upon as belong to a specific version of software today. If you want to work with new format, you have to upgrade the software. That won't work if the OS becomes virtualized and the app versions differ between the two versions of OS. Data need to survive the version changes: too often apps support "backwards compatibility" by taking in old format and converting into new format but that shouldn't be. Customers don't care what version the data is. They want to work with their data and then pick and choose the app version and the OS version [sometimes you are forced to use certain version of app to work with specific OS version, but that's app problem, not user problem].

Hopefully the trends towards xml and OS independent apps [like Java apps and web based tools like google map] will open up this world of data independence.

Power on the Sly: headphone jack!

I love it when technology challenge the system: "Recharge In Flight Without AC Outlets."

Children are a step ahead

"Students find ring tone adults can't hear" -- see how children [and any "attacker" who is determined] will figure a way to be one step ahead of the "security guard" [or parents or teachers as is the case in this article].

Missing Game Creators

"Where Have All the Game Gods Gone?" asks as if it was impossible for new talents to break through but there are always talents "in the wings." How they get recognized is next to impossible since the barrier to entry for great games is pretty high: for console games, you need lots of money to get started. For PC games, the quality has to be really outstanding to be even noticed and that's no trivial task. Sigh...

Games and gals

"Explaining disconnect between women, video games" saids it very simply how male and female are so different and why few female gamers are around.

How to overcome will take a paradim shift, like giving tools to the gals rather than keeping the current regime of coding by the [mostly] boys.

Reverse-sourcing

India Times reports "Apple software logs out of India" -- so outsourcing isn't always guaranteed! However, there will be many successes for every single failures since lower cost is impossible to ignore. Bright engineers cheap just cannot be discounted, no matter how far away they are. It may not have worked for Apple but other companies do make use of people there and I think that's a good thing.

Here in America, the challenge is to do one better, faster and cheaper [while increasing the standard of living at the same time]! You don't vandalize car makers if you used to make horse buggies. You turn to another trade or industry like tire sales/repair.

Vonage not buying back from Customers

"Vonage to Customers: Pay up" -- how things quickly turn from bad to ugly. Not only do we (customers) have to pay for our monthly fees, but if we did "buy" the IPO stocks (I didn't), you had to pay for the loss. Ouch. Customer service, NOT!

I did eventually get my phone working, but as an unhappy customer, I'm glad to see that the IPO went badly.