February 25, 2004

Death of the Password

CNET has an article that highlights some of Mr. Gates’ comments during a speech at the RSA Security conference held this week in SF.

In particular, the following comment, which we’ve heard before with the hype around Smart Cards, but hopefully the obvious end to passwords will come to fruition sooner this time than later (this time).

“Bill Gates predicted the demise of the traditional password because it cannot “meet the challenge” of keeping critical information secure.”

February 24, 2004

Local News and RSS Feeds

Perhaps I’m late to mention this because I missed the local news feature the first time I looked at Topix, but thanks to Tim Bray’s recent comments, I took another look at Topix’s beta targeted news service and to my delight they also have a RSS “feed for every ZIP code in the US, a feed for every public company, a feed for every sports team, a feed for every movie star, band and musician…and more” (via Rich Skrenta Blog)

February 23, 2004

Microsoft tests InfoPath update

Via CNET I just read that today Microsoft released an update for InfoPath

“Microsoft released a trial version Monday of its first major update to InfoPath, the new electronic forms application released last year as part of the Office family.”

“The beta version of Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes several significant new features, said Microsoft product manager Bobby Moore, along with the typical performance enhancements and bug fixes included in a service pack…”

February 20, 2004

Live Linux CDs

I’m constantly amazed at the influx of customized bootable Linux CDs (aka Live Linux)

For example, check out some of the distributions on this list

The distro’s geared toward kids and education are starting to look particularly interesting to me these days.

February 19, 2004

What Exit: Google’s Location Search

I’m starting to find the beta of Google’s Location Search to be very handy and much faster than using my old stand-by.

Doc has even noticed that you can find local hot-spots in your area via the tool.

If addition, I found a neat little trick to add a localized link to your favorites or “bookmarklet” for quick access.

Go to Google’s Location Search page, enter your address into the address field with nothing in the search terms area, then click search.

February 18, 2004

The New Yahoo in Town

So far I’ve found Yahoo’s new search to be for the most part comparable with Google in most respects. Even the interface is minimalist. Well, that is in relation to other more gregarious Yahoo interfaces.

I even like the XML/RSS restrictive search features. Albeit it would be cooler to be able to get the search results as an RSS feed.

However, I found that Yahoo’s image search is suspiciously similar to Google’s.
For example, compare these image search results on Google and Yahoo.

February 17, 2004

Longhorn is not Entrenched in WinFS

Tom’s Hardware Guide provides an in-depth review of Windows Future Storage (WinFS). Including some points I wasn’t quite sure of myselft…

“Microsoft will not be building an entirely new file system after all. Windows Future Storage (WinFS) is integrated into Longhorn as a modular extension to file management.”

“Technologically, Longhorn is in any case not entrenched in WinFS. The OS works just as well on FAT32 volumes. Conversely, WinFS can be used in other systems, too…”

February 12, 2004

I want my RSSTV!

I learned via PVRBlog about Andrew Grumet’s proposal to the TiVo and DIY PVR communities regarding sharing your recordings among friends via RSS — in essence, Andrew’s idea is an application of social networking, but perhaps you’re best served by reading through Andrew’s proposal.

Here are a few choice quotes:

“Today my TiVo is networked and programmable. Do-it-yourself PVRs are on the rise, and we know that the open source ones like MythTV are programmable. Perhaps some of the commercial ones are too. So maybe it’s time for us to flex some programmer muscle and code up our PVRs to leverage the power of the Net. We ought to at least be able to add the ability to share our great taste with friends. But probably a lot more.”

February 11, 2004

Product Blogging

I recently started reading Chris Pratley blog. Chris is the Microsoft OneNote Group Program Manager and it appears he has been publicly blogging for only a weeks. Yet in just a few entries, Chris not only provides unique insight into MSFT’s product development practices and techniques, but I also feel that the blog broadens the user community’s perspective of the product.

Specifically, you can also see how this type of public communication about a product (and an excellent one I might add) can spawn user feedback that will undoubtedly influence the product’s direction.

February 10, 2004

Canon 300D Digital Rebel in Paris

Alain Briot, described as one of the most successful landscape photographers working in the U.S. today, takes his Canon 300D Digital Rebel to Paris and details his intriguing conclusions on Luminous Landscape, such as the following:

“In evaluating the final results from my two weeks photographing in Paris, and while actually looking at prints done from my 300D images, I find these prints to be comparable to 4×5″, in terms of sharpness and overall image quality, in size up to 11×14 and maybe even larger”