NEWS: Oracles releases a free database

[via BetaNews]

The free open source database leader MySQL has some new competition from expensive enterprise database leader Oracle. The company on Monday unveiled a beta release of 10g Express Edition, otherwise known as Oracle Database XE, which is free to develop, deploy and distribute.

Oracle's new edition is aimed at students, small organizations and software developers looking to integrate a database into their applications. Although it offers the same core as Oracle's more pricey business offerings, XE is limited to systems with a single processor, 1GB of RAM and 4GB of database storage space.

[...] Oracle Database XE is slated for a final release before the end of the year. Downloads are available for both Linux and Windows.

NEWS: The Dilbert Blog

[via Heiko]

Cool, Scott Adams opened a Dilbert's blog since October 25, 2005!

PICTURES: Hyperion

[via CICLOPS]

Great view of Hyperion, another moon of Saturn (diameter: 360x280x225 km).

This stunning false-color view of Hyperion reveals crisp details and differences in color across the strange, tumbling moon’s surface that could represent differences in the composition of surface materials. The view was obtained during Cassini’s very close flyby on September 26, 2005.

Hyperion has a notably reddish tint when viewed in natural color. The red color was toned down in this false-color view, and the other hues were enhanced, in order to make more subtle color variations across Hyperion’s surface more apparent.

Images taken using infrared, green and ultraviolet spectral filters were combined to create this view. The images were taken with the narrow angle camera from a distance of approximately 62,000 kilometers (38,500 miles) from Hyperion and at a Sun-Hyperion-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 52 degrees. The image scale is 362 meters (1,200 feet) per pixel.

BLOG: Displaying Visitors log

Remember what is gVisit? I have posted about this visitors' map generator in August. gVisit allows to generate this kind of maps:



I find this service pretty cool because it materializes the different visitors' locations much more than the logs. For example, on this blog in the last hours, I had the visit of people from (just some exotic - from my point of view - destinations, a *lot* of you are "just" coming from the US, which is not quite exotic, but hey, thanx to have a look here from time to time, you are warmly welcome ;-):



I searched a way to integrate a kind of "uptodated-short-list" of my last 10 visitors directly in my blog. gVisit gives a tip how to bring dynamically an RSS feed within a page, with the help of PHP and Javascript. This service called Feed2JS is free, you can also installed the code directly to your website, if you'd like to (GNU license). You can now have a look on the right-side of the blog, you could find the discussed short-list (RSS reader, come and have a look :-).



PS: the visitors log is updated every few hours, so do not refresh each minute, not really efficient/useful ;-)

BLOG: Back from Management Forum

Wow, I am back and happy to be at home again for the week-end. It was definitely great but exhausting this year. I had 24 face-2-face in 3 days + the conferences + workshops + ... the good foods and wines ;-)

Different themes this year:

• Growth strategies - expanding the corporation by Christoph Lechner, who is Professor of Strategic Management at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. I *have* to come back to this one, one of the best strategic inputs in my last 2 years. Impressive.


• How to develop a Sales Channel Management Strategy by Marcus Schoegel, Professor in Marketing Management at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland


• Last but not least, the first inputs concerning the new strategy 2007-2010 of the Helvetia Patria Group. This part is ... confidential ;-)

Very good contacts, a *lot* of great talks, very inspiring! And what for a weather, crazy!

eCENTER: Mark this day :-)

Again, a "mark-this-day-without-having-the-possibility-to-say-more". In fact, it will be tomorrow, before the start of my fourth Management Forum.

The name is choosen, the logo is great, the domains are reserved, the partnership contract is on the good way, the last legal clarifications are on the good way, the ... is defined. And tomorrow, I will have the honour to live my first foundation ...'s meeting. So great! An incredibly exhausting 12 months process, with some huge political games, *so* interesting. I am so proud.

I am completely excited, a bit stressed, my dream (perhaps nightmare in the future, but NOW it is *still* a dream) is coming true!

BLOG: Management Forum till Friday evening

So, as last year, I have the chance to be able to participate for the fourth time to the Helvetia Patria Group's Management Forum.

What is the Management Forum?

This is our yearly group-wide Executive Managers meeting (Board of Directors and local Executive Board members, special Group functions). About 50 persons from the 4'800 employees within the Holding. A great honour for me! Near all the strategic workshops and presentations (some very interesting guest-speakers as last year), these 3 days are a great opportunity for me to discuss with all my internal clients from the different subsidiaries (CEO, CIO).

Main topic this year

The main topic this year is linked with growth as future source of additional earnings. Cool, I am quite excited.

GADGET: Shure E2c canal phones

I have searched some good earphones for a while and I have bought the Shure E2c isolating earphones.

Technicals specs

• Speaker Type: Dynamic MicroDriver


• Sensitivity (at 1kHz): 105dB SPL/mW


• Impedance (at 1kHz): 16 Ohm


• Cable Length: 1.57m


• Net Weight: 30g


• Input Connector: 3.5 mm gold-plated stereo plug

Sound Isolating Technology: How it works

The E2c's in ear design works like an earplug to block background noise naturally. This enables you to listen comfortably at lower volumes -- even in loud environments. And unlike bulky headphones utilizing active noise cancellation technology, no artifacts are introduced into your listening experience. Sound isolating earphones are also much smaller and don't require batteries.

Canal phones: How it works

Canal phones are a cross between ear buds and earplugs. They actually fit into the ear canal, and the tiny speakers vibrate the air between the drivers and the eardrum, producing sound. Since the phones seal off the movement of air in and out of the canal, outside sounds are muted and only the vibrations of the driver are pushing air against the eardrum. Historically, one annoyance with canal phones has been micro phonics – unintentional sounds that are amplified by the design of the canal phones. Contact with the wires may produce a scraping sound and footsteps a deep thudding.

Some reviews

• DesignTechnica


• amazon.com


• HomeTheater


• cnet.com

My review

- tricky to place in ears
- somewhat expensive (but worth it...), about 100$

+ excellent pro sound quality
+ very precise and detailed rendering
+ ambient noise isolation
+ storage case
+ different size of flex sleeves
+ you can really decrease the volume to obtain the same rendering feeling

NEWS: Les Blogs 2 - Program is out

I registered in September for the 2nd edition of the conference Les Blogs in Paris. A draft of the program is published here. Interesting.

It is not only about blogging, it's about changing the way we think

What defines this new way of thinking and acting ? Difficult to say, let's try to define it together. I would say that transparency, openness and collaboration are the key values that drive this phenomenon. It is not only about blogging, not only about social software and other tools, it is much broader. Of course bloggers are at the forefront of this way of life: unformal, friendly, no powerpoint and no ties...

Let's define together these new values and understand :
1. How they challenge the corporate world
2. How they change the media landscape
3. How they bring more democracy in politics
4. How education evolves
5. What are the tools used and how we can all best benefit from them
6. Where we are going in the near and longer term future

A companion wiki is also opened here.

eCENTER: International Life & Pension Insurance Conference

I am very proud to announce you that Nick Stefania and myself are invited by hp Financial Services Industry to present our ecenter solutions case at the coming International Life & Pension Insurance Conference in Moscow, Russia. We are integrated in the following session:

Energize the Life Insurance Market with Hot New Technologies.

The title of our presentation is:

An innovative approach to support new products and multichannel distribution.

We are very excited to be able to show how we are supporting the Business with our technology. Great opportunity!

Now some information about the Conference itself.

It is about...

"We are proud to announce the first ever international life insurance congress to be held in Moscow, Russia. We have brought together many highly regarded international experts in the field of life insurance who will share with the audience their ideas and strategies for successful investment in emerging markets. Among the speakers are CEOs and executive managers of leading USA, European, UK, CIS and Asian financial services companies; Heads of Financial & Insurance Supervision Authorities; International Actuarial Association; Senior Representatives of Financial and Investment institutions; "cutting edge" information technology firms, and other insurance experts. We are sure that this important conference will help to boost the development of the life insurance industry in the CIS region". Olga Ruf-Fiedler, Chair of the Organizing Committee and Vice President of Winterthur Group, Switzerland

Conference topics

• International experience in developing life & pension insurance in emerging markets. Lessons and opportunities


• Investment climate for Eastern Europe, CIS and Asia


• Regulatory framework and economic climate in Russia and CIS. Prospects and tendencies. International standards for life insurance supervision


• Life insurance local features Eastern Europe & CIS (regional peculiarities) - Transformation process Eastern Europe


• Marketing & Distribution strategies for long term life insurance - how to increase demand and win customers' trust


• Bancassurance - global trends and developments


• Modern technologies in life insurance - learn from the experience of Western European insurers and technology firms


• Asset liability management - popular financial instruments and Long term financial instruments

We will address¨the above-marked 3 topics in our presentation.

Who should attend

CEOs and senior managers of leading CIS, Asian and International insurance companies, Heads of financial and insurance groups, Banks, senior actuaries, insurance and IT experts and consultants.

You can register here.

PICTURES: Sweden's Twisting Tower

[via CNN.com]

Wow, original and very nice!

With its spectacular 90-degree twist, Turning Torso consists of nine stacked cubes, each turned slightly.

The bottom three cubes will be office space and the top six contain 147 luxury apartments. Many residents, who are expected to move to the rented apartments in November, will have a view overlooking either the flat farmland of Skane, Sweden's southernmost province, or the Oresund strait and Denmark.

[...] The HSB housing cooperative that built the skyscraper originally planned condominiums only, but decided to rent the apartments because of the high costs. The most expensive apartment will be rented for about euro3,000 ($3,700) a month.

BLOG: blogkomm v2.3

I have finished to install and to configure the last version of blogkomm (v2.3) developped by Holger Kreis. Thanks a *lot* to Holger for this new release, which contains a captcha-feature (see Wikipedia). That was really necessary for me because I was confronted with a new wave of spams since some days (yesterday, over 100 comment-spam....), although, again, there is *no* chance that a comment-spam appears on this blog because of the moderation.

blogkomm integrates the reader's comments into your blog without any pop-ups. Besides this you have different features coming along with that, like

• different notification services


• preview feature


• user remember feature


• quick-Editing admin-tool


• recent comment-list


• multilingual interface


• a setup and configuration tool


• comments moderation


• captchas for spam protection (Version 2.3)


• gravatar-feature included

BUSINESS: About Open Source Business Model

[via Jeff and Business Week]

Most business models rely on giving the software away over the Web, then either charging for a souped-up version of the program or for training, maintenance, and support.

But revenue continues to be a problem. While open-source companies trumpet hundreds of thousands of downloads, on average just about 2% of those customers are actually paying any money. After all, just because every piece of software companies rely on to run their businesses can be replicated with open-source alternatives, that doesn't mean there's a market for it, caution analysts.

The upside is that many more companies will try open-source software because it's free. The viral nature of the Web and the open-source community means companies don't need a costly sales organization. Instead of hiring expensive, experienced salespeople and investing a lot of money and time in closing deals with skeptical CIOs, open-source companies just put their code online. Developers within companies often download the software for a test drive. Word of mouth spreads the news. Before long, young companies such as SugarCRM and JasperSoft are getting tens of thousands downloads a day, without spending a dime on sales calls.

BUSINESS: Engineers in China and India

[via Tom Peters]

Wow!!

600,000/engineering degrees/2004/China
350,000/engineering degrees/2004/India
70,000/engineering degrees/2004/U.S.A.

Source: Rising Above the Gathering Storm/National Academies of Science/Presidential report/October 2005

NEWS: Firefox hits 100 million downloads

[via BetaNews]

The milestones keep coming for the little browser that could, and the Mozilla Foundation now has a new reason to celebrate: on Wednesday morning, downloads for Firefox surpassed 100 million. The second major release of Firefox, version 1.5, is due later this fall.

NEWS: Microsoft and Open Source

[via O'Reilly]

Sometimes, it is good to bring this kind of discussion down to earth.

While many people see Microsoft as the "enemy" of open source, Microsoft has in fact been busy learning from open source, and has released source code for more than eighty Microsoft projects under a "shared source" license. In addition, there are about six hundred programs (notably dotNetNuke) released by independent developers under Microsoft shared source licenses. As in the open source world, many of these projects have ended up with small license variations, creating unnecessary complexity.

[...] Based on a quick read, the non-limited versions of these licenses look like they might well be able to meet with OSI approval as open source licenses. I'd urge Microsoft to go ahead and to go ahead and submit them to License-Discuss for OSI Approval, and become a full-fledged member of the open source community.

GADGET: Big screens, HP L2035

[via Jeremy & New York Times]

It seems that there is a "scientific" justification to buy big screens.

The results? On the bigger screen, people completed the tasks at least 10 percent more quickly - and some as much as 44 percent more quickly. They were also more likely to remember the seven-digit number, which showed that the multitasking was clearly less taxing on their brains. Some of the volunteers were so enthralled with the huge screen that they begged to take it home. In two decades of research, Czerwinski had never seen a single tweak to a computer system so significantly improve a user's productivity. The clearer your screen, she found, the calmer your mind.

I totally agree :-) I am using for a while now (some months) an HP L2035 20.1-inch LCD at home and in my office. Quite a great LCD, nice quality, excellent contrast, sharp rendering, with an interesting smooth landscape-portrait pivot system.
The HP L2035 is coming with DVI-D, DVI-A, VGA and S-Video inputs. Resolution is 1600x1200, 16ms pixel-response time, contrast ratio 500:1, max. vertical and horizontal view angle: 170°, 3-years guarantee.

Have a look at the cnet review.

NEWS: Google PR and BL updates

[via Matt Cutts]

From a post on October 17, 2005:

Just to give you a heads-up, I think a new set of backlinks (and possibly PageRank) will probably be visible relatively soon; I’m guessing within the next few days. I still expect some flux after that though, just to let you know.

NEWS: Optimism is hard

[via Seth]

I like this one very much: Optimism is hard. But it's usually worth it.
Seth gives us some precise examples. Hard to believe but simply the "brutal facts".

Today's Globe & Mail reports that over teh last 12 years, the number of armed conflicts in the world has gone down by 40% and the number of extremely deadly conflicts (more than 1,000 battle-related deaths) is down by more than 80%.

A different source reports that New York is the safest large city in the US, with serious crime continuing to drop.

And it's much harder to get sick from bad sushi, too. (has to do with aggressive refrigeration.)

NEWS: About innovation and web 2.0

[via Jeff]

Forget the innovator’s dilemna principle in the Web 2.0 world: established players (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft & al) are bringing in talents by hiring them away or acquiring their companies, and are playing catch up on new features and services at an unprecedented pace. The initial versions of what they produce are not always great and don’t really match startup products or services, but in a relatively short order, they get closer and closer. And since the “elephants in the room” know one thing – scale, they can intercept startups when these start facing scalability issues and their initial architecture can’t cope with their success.

GADGET: Blackberry 7100v

I have participated to a pilot-phase by Helvetia Patria since about 4 weeks with 20 other colleagues, to be able to test and to validate the usage of Blackberry within the company.

I got (and still have ;-) a Blackberry 7100v.

Features

• Complete functionality including:


• Phone


• Email


• SMS


• Wireless Data Access


• Address book


• Browser


• Calendar


• Memo Pad


• Tasks


• SureType™, the new keyboard technology from Research In Motion


• Bluetooth hands-free headset and car kit support


• Bright, high resolution display


• Polyphonic ringtones to give your business phone a distinctive personality


• Integrated attachment viewing for popular file formats


• Exceptional battery performance


• 32 MB of memory


• Dedicated send and end keys


• Quad-Band network support, allowing for international roaming between North America, Europe and Asia Pacific

Architecture

After one month...

+ clear screen
+ very user-friendly
+ online synchro with emails and agenda
+ data compression
+ access to the enterprise contacts (fix, mobile, mail, etc)
+ mobile size (no "pizza-box")
- keys confusing at the beginning
- battery! for chance, yu can use the USB connector to solve this issue

Overview

Email

Agenda

Internet Browser

NEWS: For audiophile

[via BetaNews]

That could be interesting :-) It is the first time I read somewhere that an On-line music download service wants to deliver real high-quality sound files to "audiophiles", that means for people who can make a difference between 192kbps and 256kbps MP3 encoding.

Ask many an audiophile what their number one complaint about digital music is, and you'd likely get the same answer from just about everyone: quality.

The door has been left wide open for a high-fidelity music download service, and with the further ubiquity of broadband and larger capacity digital music players, file size is no longer an issue.

Enter MusicGiants. The Nevada-based company quietly launched its self-titled service September 29, but if my first look is any indication, the service may be about to make a big splash in the world of digital music. For a $50 annual fee, users are given access to a catalog of music from EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music.

While the current music selection obviously pales in comparison to that of iTunes or Napster, the company says that it is in the process of securing deals with the other major labels to expand the catalog.

MusicGiants users can download each track for $1.29, which initially would be "free" through a $50 song credit given for joining the service. However, unlike competing services that encode their songs at 128 kbps, all tracks from MusicGiants are in Microsoft's Windows Media Lossless format, which encodes songs between 470 and 1100 kbps.

NEWS: 74'409'971 sites

[via Netcraft]

In the October 2005 survey we received responses from 74,409,971 sites, an increase of 2.68 million sites from the September survey. The large gain makes 2005 the strongest year ever for Internet growth, as the web has added 17.5 million sites, easily surpassing the previous annual mark of 16 million during the height of the dot-com boom in 2000.

[...] With this month's growth, Apache now powers more than 50 million sites.

PICTURES: Bugatti Veyron

Have a look at the new Bugatti's Veyron. What for a car :-) The Veyron is produced at Molsheim - France, at about 80km from where I am living. This is a "back-to-the-roots" process because Molsheim is the historical place of Bugatti since 1910.

Specifications

• Engine: W16 (two W8 engines mated together), 4 turbochargers, 8.0l


• Power: 1'001 metric horsepower


• Torque: 1'250 Nm


• Transmission: DSG with 7 gear ratios, all wheel drive


• Weight: 1'888 kg


• Time 0-100 km/h: 2.5s (!!)


• Time 0-200 km/h: 7.3s


• Time 0-300 km/h: 16.7s


• Average top speed: 407 km/h


• City driving: 40.4 l/100km


• Combined cycle: 24.1 l/100km


• Price: about 1.1 million euros

Some articles

Great Wikipedia's article about the history of Bugatti and the Veyron itself.

Some pictures

NEWS: IM convergence

[via BetaNews]

Microsoft and Yahoo announced on Wednesday a blockbuster interoperability deal that will reshape the landscape of the fragmented instant messaging market. The companies will connect their IM networks so users on each can communicate with one another using text and voice chat free of charge.

Starting in the second quarter of 2006, customers of both services will be able to see their friends' online presence, share emoticons, and add new contacts from either Yahoo! Messenger or MSN Messenger to their buddy list.

eCENTER: Four Seasons' Club in Zürich

Yesterday evening, I was invited by Dominique Freymond, who is Partner of Management & Advisory Services and, among others, Member of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Post at a conference of Etienne Jornod - CEO and Chairman of the Galenica Group (pharma industry). This conference was organized by an informal Executive French-speaking club called "Les Quatre Saisons" in Zürich, Switzerland. Very interesting discussion about the role of the pharma industry in Switzerland, which is homebase of a lot of huge companies as Roche, Novartis, Serono, Galenica. For the size of this country, this is great :-) About 1 million people are working directly and indirectly for the pharma sector (there are 7 million inhabitants in Switzerland!).

Some other great discussions with Jean-Pierre Klumpp, the CEO of one of the oldest Swiss Private Bank - Ehinger & Armand von Ernst, which will be integrated in a bigger one - Julius Baer in the coming time.

Plus, some good exchange about culture and international projects & HR frameworks with Garry Wagner, Chief Human Resources Officer of Siemens Building Technology.

And, last but not least, with Marina de Senarclens, Chairman of the communicatiojn company Leu+Partner.

I was there with Manu, the CEO of Boomerang. A picture of Manu about 10' before the start of the conference:



The Lake of Zürich is marvelous at the end of the day:

[click]

Great business evening, thank you Mr. Freymond!

TRAVELLING: Corsica - Calvi

So, I have merged all my posts about our last holidays in Calvi / Corsica / France. A kind of "all-in-one".

[click]

NEWS: Worst-ever score at Euro NCAP crash tests

[via TimesOnline]

The first Chinese car to be sold in Europe has scored zero — the worst-ever score — in safety tests.

The JiangLing Landwind was displayed at the Frankfurt Motor Show last week and is expected to arrive in British showrooms within months. It is already on sale in Holland, Germany and Belgium and has been billed as the vanguard of a new invasion of Chinese vehicles.

The two-ton 4x4 scored zero stars in crash tests last week by the ADAC, the German automobile club, which carries out tests for Euro NCAP. "It had a catastrophic result," said a spokesman for the ADAC. "In our 20-year history no car has performed as badly."

Testers calculated that a driver would be unlikely to survive a head-on collision at 40mph, and in a side-on collision at 30mph the driver would suffer severe head and chest injuries due to a lack of side protection.

NEWS: eBay acquires VeriSign

[via BetaNews]

eBay announced Monday that it would form a strategic alliance with VeriSign in order to strengthen security on its PayPal online payment service. As part of the alliance, eBay will also purchase VeriSign's payment gateway business.

The online auction site will pay VeriSign $370 million for the payment gateway in cash and stock. The service is expected to generate an additional $100 million in revenue for eBay, the company said in a statement.

VeriSign's gateway would be rolled into PayPal's already present merchant services, and will give users a wider choice of processing options for online payments. VeriSign's gateway processed more than $40 billion in volume during 2004.

Account security will be strengthened by VeriSign's two-factor authentication, which gives customers a one-time password or digital certificate that will help them prevent identity theft. The new process is expected to be implemented sometime next year.

BUSINESS: Open Source goes Corporate

[via InformationWeek]

Some *very* good thoughts in this article, have a look!

As large companies move in [the Open Source] direction, they've got some issues to deal with. First and foremost, they must find a way to integrate open source into their commercial software environments and support it on an ongoing basis. They want reassurances that open-source code won't be subject to intel- lectual-property lawsuits. They need procedures established to avoid violating licensing terms that are different from what they're used to. And, as they move up the open-source "stack" of operating systems, databases, and application servers, they have to decide where to draw the line. Are open-source applications in their future?

Much of the work companies are doing with open source revolves around their key Web-site applications and increasingly around those applications' underlying databases. There are no sales figures for software that can be downloaded for free and is often introduced into organizations by developers acting on their own rather than going through purchasing departments.

Licensing is one of the greatest challenges for open-source users. "The fact that software is open source doesn't mean a company can use it in the way they want to use it," Yahoo's Zawodny says. Different licenses have different requirements in terms of distributing and modifying code. Yahoo has designated an employee to manage open-source licensing terms and legal issues. "It shouldn't be scaring people away; people just need to know what they're getting into," he says.

It's a different story at Sabre, which five years ago embarked on a $100 million project to move its air-travel shopping and pricing services off mainframes and onto 13 HP NonStop servers and a cluster of 45 HP Itanium database servers running the open-source MySQL database on Red Hat's Enterprise Linux. The move was calculated to help the company keep up with growing customer demand for online services.

The initial success of Sabre's migration toward open-source technology spurred further adoption. Over the past 18 months, the company has migrated more of its services off mainframes to run on 48 Intel Xeon-based HP servers and 177 AMD Opteron-based HP servers running Linux. Sabre's experience with open source extends to The Ace Orb, or TAO, a Corba 2.5-compliant C++ object request broker, as well as JBoss and Tomcat. Sabre now considers open source whenever it has an IT project up for review.

WEEK_END: Spring in autumn

What a beautiful day :-)

NEWS: Oracle buys Innobase

[via Jeremy]

And this could have quite a big impact on MySql.... I haven't known that Innobase is so deeply integrated in MySql, thanks for this input Jeremy ;-)

As reported in several sources (Slashdot, InfoWorld, AP on Yahoo, Reuters), Oracle has acquired Innobase Oy for an undisclosed sum of money. This appears to be a strategic move by Oracle to put MySQL between a rock and hard place.

Innobase is the company that provides the underlying code for the InnoDB storage engine in MySQL. It's the de-facto choice for developers who need high concurrency, row-level locking, and transactions in MySQL. For many years now, MySQL AB and Innobase Oy (founded by Heikki Tuuri) have worked closely together to make that technology a seamless part of MySQL.

Like all of the MySQL code, InnoDB is dual licensed. That means you can freely use it under the GPL or buy a license for it if your usage would violate the GPL.

I've always wondered why MySQL AB didn't buy Innobase Oy years ago. It always made complete sense from where I sat. But I'm hardly an insider when it comes to the relationship between those companies. Needless to say, that relationship just got far more "interesting."

I hope, for the sake of the community and the company (I've known many MySQL employees for years), that Oracle is true to their promises. But it is Oracle, so I'm naturally skeptical.

TOOLS: Google Reader

[via Jeff & BetaNews]

Sure, Google couldn't avoid to launch an RSS reader. Have a look at the Google Reader. You need a Gmail account. Really slow, but they will surely solve that in the near future ;-)

Google took the covers off a Web based RSS reader at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco Friday. The tool, appropriately dubbed Google Reader, serves as an aggregator for Web feeds and is designed much like the company's Gmail service with Starred favorites and keyboard shortcuts.

NEWS: Linus Torvalds' interview

[via BusinessWeek]

An interview of Linus Torvalds in BusinessWeek.

Hardware companies are selling more than $1 billion in servers to run Linux every quarter, while sales of servers running proprietary software continue to fall. And now, slowly but surely, Linux is making inroads on the desktop as well. According to IBM, 10 million desktops ran Linux in 2004 -- a 40% jump from a year ago.

[...] What you see is that new blood tends to concentrate on the things that the old projects didn't do, and thus the horizons for open source keep on widening.

The applications and services [companies] are just a sign that the core competencies of open source have grown up enough that these things make sense. It certainly wasn't something you could do five years ago; the infrastructure just wasn't there.

What about Linux on the desktop? Why hasn't it taken off?
Oh, it has absolutely taken off, but some people seem to think that "take off" means that suddenly everybody is running it. That's clearly not true. It's a very slow conversion.

NEWS: Jeremy's analysis of blogging tools

[via Jeremy]

So, first the introduction of Jeremy :-)

Several years into this whole blogging thing, the technology and tools designed to facilitate this global conversation all suck.

Then, his conclusion.

The promise of the blogosphere is a loosely connected global network of conversations with an incredibly low barrier to entry. The reality is that the tools are still far too immature for the current scale of this growing network. Worse yet, most aggregators are designed to mimic e-mail or usenet news clients rather than embracing the highly connected nature of blog posts and comments, not the mention the typically short "decay" periods associated with the discussion around most posts.

I must say...I agree with this analysis. We need a kind of quantum leap in this field... Blogging means a *lot* of manual processes, which are all quite time-consuming.

BUSINESS: Why big companies use Open Source

[via InformationWeek]

Six interesting learnings about the usage of Open Source components in big companies.

1. Most large, multi-billion-dollar companies don't know how much open source they're actually using. It's introduced into the IT environment by developers looking to build the best applications in the shortest amount of time possible.


2. Most companies don't have a budget, per se, for open source. Open source is often used to help launch side projects that otherwise would stay on the shelf because there isn't enough IT money to go around.


3. Open source is responsible for changing the character of large IT operations even more than it is changing the composition of these operations. [...] Perhaps the greatest driver of open source adoption is that programmers like it.


4. There seems to be a consensus among large companies that open-source is a superior model for avoiding per-CPU software licensing fees that quickly add up in the data center.


5. There's an awful lot of the open-source JBoss application server and MySQL database being used by large companies. [...] One of the reasons open source has been successful, particularly in large businesses that have already made significant IT investments, is that companies can pick and choose the pieces they want to use, Fleury [CEO of JBoss] pointed out, adding, "A mark of the success of open source is that it's modular by design."


6. Big companies don't want to get pinched by intellectual-property lawsuits over open source. [...] Essentially JBoss will replace any code found to be in violation of intellectual-property rights.

eCENTER: Strategic workshop at Waldgarten

I have completely forgotten to mention our strategic workshop at Waldgarten (website in German) on July 20, 2005 ;-) What for a view!

[click]

[click]

Have you ever seen a crane beeing unmounted??

NEWS: Security on Spread Firefox

Received today per Email from Spread Firefox.

The Spread Firefox Team became aware this week that the server hosting Spread Firefox, our community marketing site, has been accessed by unknown remote attackers who attempted to exploit a security vulnerability in TWiki software installed on the server. The TWiki software was disabled as soon as we were aware of the attempts to access SpreadFirefox.com. This exploit was limited to SpreadFirefox.com and did not affect mozilla.org web sites or Mozilla software.

We have scanned Spread Firefox servers and at this time do not believe any sensitive data was taken, but as a precautionary measure we have shutdown the site and will be rebuilding the web site from scratch. We also recommend that you change your Spread Firefox password and the password of any accounts where you use the same password as your Spread Firefox account. We will notify you again when the site is back up with instructions on how to change your password. (Note: We do use MD5 hashing on the passwords, but MD5 cannot protect all passwords against off-line dictionary style attacks.)

After Spread Firefox was compromised in July, we instituted procedures to ensure that we apply all security fixes to the software running the site (Drupal and PHP) as soon as they become available. Unfortunately, those procedures overlooked the installation of the TWiki software since it is not used by the main Spread Firefox site. When the system is rebuilt, all the software will be audited to ensure that security updates will be applied in a timely manner. We deeply regret this incident and any inconvenience this may have caused you. Sincerely,

Spread Firefox Team
Mozilla Foundation

MUSIC: Mercedes Mixed Tape 09

Mercedes-Benz released its 9th version of the Mixed Tape. Still for free. Download here.

Opening the current compilation, British Soul sensation Alice Russell has already been likened to Joss Stone and Alicia Keys. Above and beyond, this month's Mixed Tape features a range of artists from London and Berlin, Europe's undisputed capitals of hip. While London sends Simon Hectic (soulful Hip Hop), ECT (Broken Beats) and Talc (pure Pop) into the mix, combining timeless pop moments with cutting edge production techniques, Berlin's varied contingent (a. o. Data MC (Electro-Hip Hop), Back2Square1 (Spoken Word) and Multiple Exposure
(R&B)) disdain all genre restrictions in favour of their very own capital sound.
Furthermore, Mixed Tape 09 features many further forays into the global music scene between World Beats (Goya-Project) and Italian Disco Dub (E-The-Hot).

NEWS: Office 12 to support PDF

[via BetaNews]

Microsoft over the weekend revealed that PDF support would be integrated into the next version of its productivity software, known as Office 12. The announcement was made on Saturday at the Global MVP Summit, Microsoft's annual confab for its most valuable professionals.

The company says that it's adding the new format to promote "sharing across multiple platforms." However, the move fits in with Microsoft's other recent efforts to take on Adobe in areas where its rival has enjoyed considerable success.

Jones reported that on the Office Online support site, Microsoft receives approximately 30,000 searches a week for PDF support. That made for a pretty easy decision as to what new feature would interest the most users.

PICTURES: Maybach Exelero

Maybach's last concept car called Exelero.

The standard V12 bi-turbo engine in the Maybach 57 generates 550 hp, yet it soon became clear that even this colossal power would not be enough to propel the Exelero Concept Car, weighing almost 2.7 tonnes, up to the target top speed of 350 km/h. Engineers at the DaimlerChrysler engine works enlarged displacement from 5.6 to 5.9 litres and optimised turbocharging to squeeze out around 700 hp plus at least 1000 Newton metres of torque. Following endurance trials on the engine test rig, the Exelero Concept Car waited for its big moment. On May 1, 2005 it finally arrived: on the 12.5-kilometre Nardo circuit in Italy; three-times DTM champion and Le Mans winner Klaus Ludwig took the wheel of the Exelero Concept Car. It only took two laps before the FIA-calibrated measuring unit showed the magic reading of 351.45 km/h.

PICTURES: Plasma lamp

[via wikipedia]

Sometimes, physics can be really beautiful :-)

The central electrode of a plasma lamp, showing a glowing blue plasma streaming upwards. The colors are a result of the radiative recombination of electrons and ions and the relaxation of electrons in excited states back to lower energy states. These processes emit light in a spectrum characteristic of the gas being excited.

Photo credit: PiccoloNamek