freshmeat.net: Project details for Swishd Cluster System
“Swishd cluster system is an application that will allow swish- e to scale to multiple machines, thus allowing the number of indexes (or collections) to become almost limitless. By scaling out to multiple swishd nodes the index sizes can remain small as the number of documents increase. This it typically measured in millions of documents/files.“
Open-Xchange Server 5 Released
Open-Xchange Server 5 Blends Proprietary, Open-Source Perks
“Netline Internet Service, of Olpe, Germany, has released Open-Xchange Server 5, which lets IT administrators create and implement applications without having to changing their existing infrastructure components such as databases, directory services, message transfer agents, e-mail servers or Web servers.“
LexisNexis: Up to 310,000 IDs Stolen
LexisNexis data on 310,000 people feared stolen – Computerworld
“Data broker LexisNexis Group said today that personal information may have been stolen on 310,000 U.S. citizens, or nearly 10 times the number found in a data breach announced last month.An investigation by the firm’s Anglo-Dutch parent, Reed Elsevier Group PLC, determined that its databases had been fraudulently breached 59 times using stolen passwords, leading to the possible theft of personal information such as addresses and Social Security numbers.“
VMware 5.0 Released
VMware Updates Desktop Virtualization Software
The new Teams feature, for example, “allows you to set up multiple virtual machine ‘developer classes’ and connect them together so you have an entire multitiered configuration running on one physical machine,” said Srinivas Krishnamurti, senior product manager at Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware Inc.< /blockquote>
RSDP – Really Simple Database Protocol
O’Reilly Network: RSDP: A Really Simple Proposal
“Most of what we use databases for, we can accomplish with XML-RPC and SQL. So why not define a simple XML-RPC interface (Really Simple Database Protocol, or RSDP), that allows applications to communicate with SQL databases without the need for troublesome external packages and middleware? People are already doing this with in-house projects, so all that is needed is for a couple of vendors to build simple XML-RPC front ends to existing systems.“
Sounds like a good idea, but I can already accomplish something pretty close to this with PHP and XML-RPC, I don’t think I need another layer.
Edukalibre Collab Moodle
freshmeat.net: Project details for Edukalibre Collab Moodle
“Edukalibre Collab Moodle is a Web interface to the Edukalibre Repository Manager, a system to create collaborative educational material with additional functionality such as automatic conversion of documents, history of documents, etc. This interface allows users to perform the most common tasks over the system using a Web browser. Some examples are the ability to upload or update a document, review the history of a document, or view the converted formats, etc.“
Using Skype For Recorded Phone Interviews
DDN Articles – Using Skype as a Community Media Production Tool
The article doesn’t pursue this to the end I can see: podcasting. You can use Skype to record interviews and then post those to a blog, getting your own podcast going. I’m developing this sort of thing using open source tools.
ICANN adds .jobs, .travel domains
InfoWorld: ICANN adds .jobs, .travel domains: April 08, 2005: By : STANDARDS
“Two new top-level domains, .jobs and .travel, will soon come to the Internet after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the two domains on Friday.“
Hmm, teknoids.jobs?
Grading Essays With a Computer
Teachers leave grading up to the computer | CNET News.com
“Ed Brent, professor of sociology at the Columbia, Mo., university, spent six years developing the program, which is called Qualrus, and has been testing it on his pupils for the past two. It works by scanning text for keywords, phrases and language patterns. Students load papers directly into the system via the Web and get nearly instant feedback.How can a cold, mechanical computer comprehend the art and nuance of writing? The program is actually quite sophisticated, Brent said. It’s not enough to just throw keywords into an essay willy-nilly. The program analyzes sentence and paragraph structure and can ascertain the flow of arguments and ideas. It gives each work a numeric score based on the weight instructors place on various elements of the assignment.“
I wonder if this would choke on a law school final?
Microsoft Patch Day: Critical Bulletins Expected
Microsoft Patch Day: Critical Bulletins Expected
“Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced plans to release eight security bulletins on April 12, including “critical” fixes for flaws in several widely deployed applications.As part of its advance notice mechanism, the software giant said five high-priority patches would deal only with flaws in the Windows operating system.“