The 6th incarnation of Elmer's blog
THOMAS, the leading U.S. Congressional information site on the web — think in terms of legislative history, current legislation, bill tracking, full-text searching and links to document images, all for one low price (free) — is greeting the holiday season with a new improved look and more nuanced navigation scheme.
BoleyBlogs! » A New, Improved THOMAS- Paul L. Boley Law Library
InternetWeek | News | Microsoft Makes Windows Validation Plug-In For Firefox
Microsoft this week released a plug-in for the rival Firefox browser so that users can validate their Windows systems prior to downloading software from the Redmond, Wash.-based developer’s Web site.
Interesting development. Makes sense since MSFT is very interested in protecting Windows from being pirated.
Scripting News: 11/20/2005: It’s the fifth hit on Google for XML, ahead of some pretty famous sites. It’s by far the number one reason people go to the DaveNet site. I guess I pay too much attention to the critics who say that XML-RPC isn’t good enough for them.
XML-RPC is, I think, more significant than RSS in a number of ways. Using XML-RPC allows me to give direct access to my data to developers so they can use it as they see fit. In essence I can provide content and data (which I can do well) and let others worry about layout, design, etc (which I don’t do well at all). I’m glad Dave is going to turn his attention back to XML-RPC.
technorati tags: xml-rpc, web api, Dave Winer
This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We’re talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid.
Slashdot | Google’s Secret Plans For All That Dark Fiber?
Wow. Needless to say the /. is rather up in a lather about one corporation weilding this sort of power. I wonder if they would as upset if Google were still private or if it were a non-profit. Is there something inherently evil in one corporation exercising a large measure of control over all the info on the net? Can’t say really. All we have to compare something like this to are the monopolies of the last centruies. And none of that ended well.
technorati tags: google, dark fiber
Beginning Monday, Fort Worth, Texas-based RadioShack will feature Skype products in a special kiosk, including a new Motorola Inc. headset that uses short-range wireless Bluetooth technology to make calls via Skype, priced at $100. It will sell a $40 headset from Logitech and a $129 cordless phone from Cisco Systems Inc.’s Linksys unit.The RadioShack kiosk will feature Skype starter kits for $5 with a simple earpiece/microphone, software and 30 minutes of free Skype calling time to any number in the world. Sales clerks will offer training videos and software to customers.
Skype in U.S. Retail Distribution Pact
This is huge for Skype. Retail placement in Radio Shack will put the next to cell carriers like Verizon. RS already has some of the hardware with Skype included available here. A geek bonus would be if this hardware could be reconfigured to work with SIP. I’ll be looking into this.
Cisco Systems Inc. agreed to buy Scientific-Atlanta Inc. for $6.9 billion, adding the second-largest U.S. maker of set-top boxes for cable television and tapping into the growing market for Internet TV.Cisco, based in San Jose, California, will pay $43 a share, the companies said today in a Business Wire statement. The offer is 3.7 percent higher than Lawrenceville, Georgia-based Scientific- Atlanta’s closing price yesterday.
This would seem to give Cisco a leg-up on the race to grab the sofa surfer market. S-A boxes currently provide hi-def, DVR, and a host of other features. DVD burners are coming. The boxes are networkable and Cisco has Linksys. It isn’t too much of a leap to imagine a S-A box talking to a Linksys router and beaming content all over the house as well as receiving downloads of music, movies, and photos. It beats adding a MSFT media PC to my home theater rig.
technorati tags: cisco, scientific-atlanta, linksys, hi-def, DVR, wireless
Ideally, these bots could use RSS and anyone with a feed could create their own bots that their visitors could add and use. Would you use a MAKE bot? You could ask it “how do i solder” and it he’d return text and links to our pages on this online and in the magazine
MAKE: Blog: Make AOL Instant Message bots?
Here’s an intriguing idea: we create bots that run on popular IM platforms (Yahoo, AIM, MSN, Jabber,etc) that fetch links to lessons or search the US Code. I could see this as part of our study group idea, or for use in the classroom. Put all that IM speak to good use.
technorati tags: IM, IM bots, CALI Lessons