November 6, 2003

Morphix Modular Live-CD Linux Distribution

Morphix is similar to Knoppix in that it’s a complete bootable Linux Distro on CD. The main difference however is that Morphix is modular — with ISO packages ranging from light-weight GUI to gamer

“Morphix is a modular distribution, with live-cd support (you burn the CD, you put it in your CD-Rom drive, you boot and it works… no harddisk-installation necessary, doesn’t touch your data). Also, installing Morphix on a harddisk is a breeze, if you want to. Just click on the icon on the desktop, or choose the installer from the morphix/babytux submenu.”

November 5, 2003

Ask Microsoft?

I just read this via /. about Microsoft’s interest in other search engines:

“Microsoft had also been linked with buys of any of the remaining search players, including Ask Jeeves and Looksmart, though the company has recently dumped Looksmart after deciding its results did not match up to those of its other search partners, notably Overture.”

November 5, 2003

Stopping spam with the Anti-Spam-SMTP-Proxy

This seems like a smart approach: Stop spam at the SMTP-level with Whitelists and Bayesian filtering using the Anti-Spam-SMTP-Proxy (ASSP):

“The Anti-Spam SMTP Proxy (ASSP) Server project aims to create an open source platform-independent SMTP Proxy server which implements whitelists and Bayesian filtering to rid the planet of the blight of unsolicited email (UCE). UCE must be stopped at the SMTP server. Anti-spam tools must be adaptive to new spam and customized for each site’s mail patterns. This free, easy-to-use tool works with any mail transport and achieves these goals requiring no operator intervention after the initial setup phase.”

November 5, 2003

Google is no sure thing

Quotes from an article in The Economist about Google’s ability to sustain its market-share.

“For Google to stay permanently ahead of other search-engine technologies is almost impossible, since it takes so littleÂ—only a bright idea by another set of geeksÂ—to lose the lead.”

“Yahoo!, in fact, will probably be the first to attack. It now … has under its own roof all the elements of the business model that made Google such a success.

November 4, 2003

Tomacco Plant

LOL! This happens to be based on one of my favorite Simpson’s Episodes, but apparently a fan has created a real-life Tomacco Plant! There’s a link to a KPTV News Report and a thread on Slashdot regarding this “amazing science development”.

Mmmmm, Tomacco!

November 4, 2003

Enterprises Want Search

Cathleen Moore’s article in InfoWorld this week regarding the necessity of a Enterprise Search strategy should be considered “stating the obvious”.

Some excellent quotes from the article:

“The explosion of corporate content “both in the physical form of documents, records, and data, and in the human form of personal knowledge” has pressed companies into a crisis: Find a way to tap into and effectively leverage that knowledge, or watch your company’s most vital assets wither on the vine.”

November 3, 2003

Latest about Longhorn

John Carroll over at ZDNet has posted, IMHO one of the best overviews of Longhorn to date coming off of last weeks PDC.

Here are some good quotes from the article:

“I’ve noticed before that it is much easier to create reasonably complex user interfaces in HTML than in WIN32. For instance, it’s far easier to write a “skinnable” web site than it is to write a “skinnable” WIN32 application. Granted, you could do practically anything you wanted in WIN32, but if you wanted to escape the look and feel imposed by WIN32 controls, you had to perform a bunch of programming gymnastics.”

November 1, 2003

IT on a Budget

I was reminded of this great special report in InfoWorld about IT on the cheap via Lockergnome

“From refurbished hardware and eBay deals to do-it-yourself setups, everything you need to know about buying equipment on the cheap.”

It’s certainly worth a read or bookmark.

October 31, 2003

Microsoft pursuit of Google revealed

I was in meetings all morning. So, I missed this report earlier, but Dave just alerted me to the Microsoft and Google news.

“Microsoft approached Google, the internet search engine, two months ago to discuss a partnership or even a merger it emerged today.”

“Google showed little interest in overtures from the company that dominates the market for operating systems.”
(via The Guardian)

This is certainly interesting, yet given MSFT’s track record in this respect, the news is not surprising. My guess is that the initial rejection by Google spured MSFT’s recent MSN Search push.

October 30, 2003

Doh! The cruller is no more!

Donuts?

“Walk into any local Dunkin’ Donuts and you can purchase a caramel-swirl latte or sourdough bagel, a pumpkin muffin or powdered Munchkin. You can get a jelly stick, chocolate stick, or chocolate-coconut stick, pastries that are shaped somewhat like conventional crullers and contain roughly the same lip-smacking number of empty calories.”

“But you cannot get a cruller anymore… ” (more here)