Monday November 07, 2005
Monday November 07, 2005 I love books. And I love Places for Books, too. Here are some of my recent favorites. Part I.
Blink,
by Malcolm Gladwell.A fascinating book that I will definitely read again. About trusting your instincts. About the power of what a mind can calculate - subconsciously - in the blink of an eye. And, ultimately, about how some people's instincts are flawed and biased. If your job involves exercising good judgement, as most do, this book is a must-read. It's also an eye opener as to how pervasive discrimination is in our society, even to those who would like to believe they are not biased. And, if you read the Acknowledgements section at the end of the book, you'll see that Mr. Gladwell's encounter with a police van in downtown Manhattan (the police had mistaken him for a rapist) was the genesis for this book. I have to say that I'm glad for that case of mistaken identity. This thought-provoking book seems worth the misunderstanding.
Swimming
to Antarctica, by Lynne Cox. An entrancing tale of how swimming wove itself into Lynne Cox's DNA. It starts off in New Hampshire, a state that I'm partial to, with the lines, "Please. Please. Please, Coach, let us out of the pool, we're freezing," pleaded three purple-lipped eight-year-olds in lane two..." Even though this book was written by an adult for adults, my children also became entranced with the story - and my 8 year old read it cover to cover. Lynne starts off as the slowest swimmer in her pool-based swim team only to find that her real talent was in rough water swimming - and cold water swimming. My favorite part - the power of suggestion - the magical whisper to a 9 year old girl that "Someday, Lynne, you're going to swim across the English Channel." Lynne did, at the age of 15, and broke the world record for all age groups at the same time. A well-told story about achievement and commitment. Definitely worth reading.
Coach:
Lessons on the Game of Life, by Michael Lewis.A short, short book, more like a hardcover essay, by a favorite author. Recommended by Hal Stern. About a fabulous, never to be forgotten baseball coach that Michael Lewis has, in fact, never forgotten. (I had such a coach growing up - mine was a math teacher, though, and not a baseball coach.) The kind of person that pushes you, and infuriates you, and challenges you. How much easier it is to go to your parents and complain about your mistreatment rather than step up to the plate and see if you can meet the coach's expectations? Do you take the easy path? Will you give your children the easy path? Or help them grow? Worth the quick read, by the author of Moneyball.
(2005-11-07 08:47:00.0) Permalink
Tuesday November 01, 2005 
When I passed along the news that the venerable Kepler's Books & Magazines had shut its doors at the end of August, some disappointed (shocked?) emails from far-away blog readers landed in my inbox. Well, now I have good news! Several weeks ago, Kepler's re-opened their doors. The hours are curtailed - no more late-night-after-a-date-browsing through Kepler's at 11pm - but hey, c'mon, let's not be greedy. And, real soon now, beginning on the weekend of November 3rd, Kepler's is hosting an Autumn Literary Festival. For those curious about how this turnaround came about, I wish I knew all the details! Rumour has it that some of the many Kepler's fans were willing to invest, and that there were some interesting negotiations with the landlord. I don't know. I do know that members of the newly formed Kepler's Board of Directors are profiled online. However it transpired, a heartfelt Welcome Back is in order!
(2005-11-01 08:30:05.0) Permalink
Monday October 31, 2005 Updated on 10/31/05 for those of you whose browsers cannot read the Chinese characters below - here is a .jpg of the beautiful, traditional Chinese characters that comprise my Chinese name, ji wei xin:
When ordering new business cards a few months ago, I toyed with the idea of a chinese version. You've probably seen them before - Chinese characters on one side, standard English biz card fare on the other. I consulted with my former boss Sin-Yaw Wang about how to construct the Chinese side of the card, and he waved his hand aside brusquely and dismissed the idea as silly. His criticisms: "The standard practice is to translate the sound of your full name, only expressed in Chinese characters. You will basically hear your name in a weird way and the name has nothing to do with Chinese." And - "Those who receive your card will read English. Your phone, email, and address do not need to be translated. They also understand your title and company in English perfectly."
His advice: "Get a Chinese name. Now that will make an impression!" By making the effort to select a Chinese name - you're showing that you care about the Chinese culture. The suggestion took hold. I was born in Taipei, Taiwan and lived the first year of my life immersed in a decidedly Chinese culture. What a great idea. Sin-Yaw knows me fairly well, and I asked for his help to select my Chinese name. He said he was honored, and I do believe he meant it. With the help of Sin-Yaw, here it is. Thanks, Sin!
紀薇馨
ji wei xin
And here is Sin-Yaw's description of the name he chose for me:
"I like traditional Chinese better. They are more intense and sophisticated to me. In simplified Chinese, this name will be 纪薇馨, the form commonly accepted in PRC.
紀: (ji4) To document, to record. This is your family name. This is chosen mostly for the sound and is a relatively rare Chinese surname.
Two characters are in your given name:
薇 (wei) a flower very similar to rose. It also sounds and shapes like the word meaning subtleness or small in volume. The inspiration come from Claire that I am told is a kind of flower.
馨 (xin) the refreshing floral aroma. Combined, your name may means the floral scent of rose, or a subtle and refreshing aroma."
(2005-10-31 16:43:10.0) Permalink Comments [4]
Monday October 10, 2005 The Web2.0 conference was high-energy. A mix of talented and passionate people participating in the conversation about the internet and driving change. And - Om Malik was right - I confirmed it directly, John Battelle was pleased as punch. As he should be. The format of the conference worked - a mix of 1:1 conversations, panel discussions, quick ShowMe and High-Order Bit presos and also some UI Minutes (literally, just minutes!) Lunch and dinner brought in so that attendees could eat together rather than splintering off in a million directions. A launch-pad for 13 startups (that I missed, alas - although thanks to Michele, I just secured my Wink beta login of 'claireg' and I'm already clamoring for a version of Zimbra that runs on Solaris!) Launch of Google Reader in real-time on [correction: Friday] and in just 5 minutes, Macromedia's Kevin Lynch built a flickr photo search app onstage, demonstrating with ease that flash loves html. Cool. Sure, some smart folks (including Brad Feld) have urged caution around the Web2.0 hype (hype around the internet meme, not the conference) and I can see why, but the conference itself was valuable. Having all those bright minds in one place, kibbitzing, is bound to lead to some new and interesting possibilities.
In homage to the Top10 meme I like so much, here are some memorable quotes from the sessions I attended:
"All healthy ecosystems have parasites." - Cory Doctorow (quoted by Dave Sifry of Technorati)
"A well-distributed lousy product is not enough." - Mitchell Baker of Mozilla
"Games have been described as the crack cocaine of web content." - Mark Stevens of Fenwick & West
"Blogging takes a lot less time than one-on-one interviews." - Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems
"The #1 job of a GM [or head of a movie studio] is ... to keep their job." - Mark Cuban of HDNet
"...this thing we used to call a phone." - Motorola exec (quoted by Vinod Khosla of Kleiner Perkins)
"When I tell my son that he should pay $1 for songs on iTunes, he responds...
'Dad, that sucks. Music should be free.'" - Michael K. Powell formerly of FCC
" Ebay/Skype - best example of leading US-based technology company purchasing a leading non-US technology that had leadership in foreign markets, with intent, in part, to bring the technology into the US market" - Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley
"I did not tow your car." - Jonathan Miller of AOL
"Kids think everything is clickable - even their parents. They are always on IM, always on friendships." - Vinod Khosla of Kleiner Perkins
Technorati Tag: Web 2.0
Technorati Tag: web2con
(2005-10-10 00:11:10.0) Permalink
Thursday October 06, 2005 Mary Meeker - the Managing Director of Morgan Stanley's global technology research team - took the Web2.0 audience on a fast-paced, energetic walk through her view of Internet Trends this morning. Wow. I didn't think I could meet someone who talks faster than Bryan but Mary can certainly give him a run for his money. I type almost as fast as she talks but it turns out that I didn't need to - Mary's Internet Trends preso is available online - found via the Morgan Stanley TechResearch page. Rich Sharples is also in San Francisco today and blogged his thoughts on Meeker's eBay/Skype discussion here. Mary and team at Morgan Stanley are bullish about the opportunities (and the potential dislocations) in the internet and mobile internet technology areas. And ... Mary provided a healthy reminder that the mobile internet business is dramatically different outside the US. Here's an area where those of us who fly the star spangled banner are way way behind. Bottom line - if you're interested in tech and you're interested in trends - check out Mary's slides.
Technorati Tag: Web 2.0
Technorati Tag: web2con
(2005-10-06 16:08:18.0) Permalink
Monday September 19, 2005 The whispered hushes of a library make me feel at home. When I was 12, my father used to drop us off every week at the Middletown Free Library for a blissful visit into the land of stories. It was a teeny tiny place - not a formal library building but rather a white one-story that had the small rooms and nooks and crannies of a New England house* converted into a library. We'd stay for around an hour - and on rare occasion my father would run an errand or two rather than sitting and reading and waiting. I can still remember one of the librarians stiffly informing my father, in a high-pitched nasal voice, "you know, we don't run a babysitting service here, sir."
In later years, on oh-so-very-humid New Hampshire summer days, my sister and I would take a long walk every week to visit the Concord Public Library. We'd return home with gleeful smiles on our faces and as many books as we could carry stacked all the way to our chins. (I guess backpacks were out of fashion or something?)
Some bookstores, especially ones equipped with armchairs and benches that make you feel welcome to browse and read, hold that same magical quality for me.
One of my favorite all-time bookstores (an independent one of course) is Kepler's Books & Magazines in Menlo Park, California. Sadly, Kepler's abruptly shut its doors on August 31st as the owner announced that it had gone out of business. I was stunned. As were many in Menlo Park. Some devoted fans are rallying to save Kepler's, in fact. I've spent countless hours at Keplers - browsing, reading, socializing and of course adding books to my collection. I know that things change and there's a constant tug of war between the old and the new - but it is sad to see this fixture of the community go. (I'm still hoping that it won't, and that this is just a temporary setback. Negotiations are underway, I believe.)
* [Updated: Here is a photo of the white one-story Middletown Free Library from the link above - boy does it bring back memories...]
(2005-09-19 01:12:19.0) Permalink Comments [1]
Friday September 02, 2005 When I was 8, I lived in Mississippi for one year, right next door to Gulfport, just a few blocks from the beach. My memories of Long Beach are memories of childhood - walks on the beach, playing on trampolines, weebles that wobble but don't fall down, hurricane drills in the hallway of a school named after a famous confederate soldier. My little brother fell in a creek at the end of the street, and when he stood up he was covered with crayfish, and with wide eyes of surprise, between tears - all he could say was "crayfish!!" I wonder if my old home is still standing and what happened to the people that live there now.
Even before that, my parents lived for a year in the Big Easy. They were newlyweds, and my sister was born there, just weeks before Hurricane Betsy hit. As an adult, when I travelled to New Orleans for the first time (for a USENIX conference back in the 1990s), my mother gave me a list of places I had to go to - including breakfast at Brennans and Preservation Hall Jazz. And I fell in love with a restaurant called Nola (by Emeril Lagasse, before he was a famous TV chef) and kept going back to Nola every day with more and more (and more) people joining for each meal. What an amazing, beautiful city.
So, I've found myself at a loss for words in my blog this week.
One of my first summer jobs in college brought me to the Lockheed Space Sciences Research Lab in Palo Alto. There, I worked closely with a man who had survived a concentration camp in WWII. One of the things he told me - that I've never forgotten - was that you never really know a person's true character until they've been faced with hardship. Then you know.
Here's to all the strong, courageous people on the Gulf Coast who are quietly toiling away to get through this disaster and to help others get through it.
(2005-09-02 12:43:14.0) Permalink Comments [1]
Sunday July 24, 2005 Michael Lewis is one of my heroes. He wrote a book that I love. But that's not why. He's my hero because he described something that was previously invisible to me - in such a compelling, eloquent way that I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck.
At OSCON, I'll be part of the Women in Open Source panel, organized by my friend Danese Cooper. When I said "yes" to the invite, I felt obliged to point out that in my 16 years in software, I've steadfastly tried to be gender-blind, so that I wasn't sure what value I would bring. Sure I'm a woman, but so what? I've deleted invites to all "Women in Technology" meetings and I've never attended a WITI or Hopper conference. So, big uh-oh. What to say? The wheels in my head began to turn.
Tim Bray got me thinking with his Analysts and Sex writeup - where he paraphrased the bold question he and the other 11 Sun CTOs were asked by an analyst: "Why am I looking at twelve middle-aged white guys?" I'm sure this triggered much private discussion, but not much visible public debate. Too delicate an issue, perhaps? Tim went on to blog, "But the gender thing hurts. Obviously, it’s not just Sun; I get to sit in a lot of rooms-full of senior people trying to do industry leadership, whatever that means, and there are lots of times when there aren’t any women, or just one or two, and THAT SUCKS. Even if there weren’t the ethical issues, in case you hadn’t noticed we’re still suffering from a general talent shortage in this business, and it’s not very smart to only draw from half the population."
A bit later, I was deciding what job to take next and I considered leaving Sun. Tim Bray and I chatted about ideas and he later sent me an email (presumably with the 12-middle-aged-white-guys thing in mind): "I am tempted to impose on my relationship with Jonathan and Greg to say 'uh guys, I think we have a problem here.' It occurs to me that if I were giving that narrative, something along the lines of 'And then there's Claire, who just finished delivering us a major miracle, and who is casting about and could easily be picked off by a competent outside recruiter' would fit in very smoothly. But of course I won't without your say-so."
Well, I said no. I didn't want special attention because I was a woman. I went on to share with Tim the story about a compliment I'd received years before - my then-VP said I was the "one of the best female managers." What kind of dumb left-handed compliment is that? I strive to be a good manager, even a damn good one, and wanted gender to be irrelevant. I ended up doing myself no favors by asking if I was the best brown-eyed manager or brown-haired manager...
Next, I remembered my freshman year at Brown when a bunch of the guys on my floor told me, point blank, in a mean, ugly, condescending way - to drop out of engineering because "girls weren't smart enough". Then I flashed forward to one of my first CS classes on data structures and algorithms - the putdowns gently spinning in my mind, not yet purged - and I wondered if the class would be too hard. Well, one of the head TAs in that class was a woman, and when I saw her, I thought, if she can do it, then so can I. So I kicked butt. And I TA'ed the class the next 2 years as well.
So what did Michael Lewis say that hit me like a truck? Yes, it was in Moneyball - which I've talked about before. It sounds even better read out loud:
"The inability to envision a certain kind of person doing a certain kind of thing because you've never seen someone who looks like him do it before is not just a vice. It's a luxury. What begins as a failure of imagination ends as a market inefficiency: when you rule out an entire class of people from doing a job simply by their appearance, you are less likely to find the best person for the job."
Where is this stroll down memory lane going? That you can't ignore the gender biases. Nor should you, if you want things to get better. (I have a daughter and I want things to improve before she grows up.) We need to talk about the failures of imagination - rather than sweep them under a rug. And it's not just about being fair, it's about being competitive.
So there. I do have something to say. The OSCON panel is about Women in Open Source, though, not Women in Technology. Should be interesting.
Technorati Tag: OSCON
(2005-07-24 23:45:32.0) Permalink Comments [3]
Saturday July 23, 2005 Google and Avogadro En Route to Penguins
I took 4 children to
see the March
of the Penguins today by National Geographic. What a
beautiful film. Although, it's about life with a little bit of
death thrown in for good measure, so the youngest one got a bit
teary-eyed toward the end. The cinematography was a wow and
the logistics must have been imposing. According to the scuba
gypsy blog, the penguins were filmed at "penguin eye-level for six
to seven hours a day in 13 to 22 below zero
Fahrenheit in order to capture character-like qualities of the
creatures." Imagine what kind of quads those cinematographers
must have.On the way there, the 4 children had a little chat about numbers. I stayed out of it. For context, they are 8, 7.5, 6, 5.5 - two are mine, two are someone else's. Why am I sharing this? It was just so darn amusing... To the best of my recollection, they said:
- Why did they have to cut down that beautiful old shade tree at school?
- It was old and was sick. They had to.
- How old?
- Really really old.,
- Yeah, but how old?
- One thousand million years.
- No, a google.
- Google plus!
- Yeah, google plus years.
- Definitely google plus.
- Isn't Avogadro's number bigger?
- Infinity is the biggest. It's because there are always more numbers to count. The numbers never stop counting.
- That's right, there's no stopping point for numbers. Just a starting point - zero.
- No, zero is not the lowest number.
- Yes it is.
- No, it's not.
- Yes it is!
- No it's not! When we drove back from Tahoe last winter it was so cold it was in the negative numbers.
- What's a negative number?
- Negative one, negative two - it was negative twelve degrees that day - all the way down to negative infinity.
- You're right I guess - numbers don't have a starting point either. Of course.
[Pause]
- Are we there yet, Mom???
(2005-07-23 22:48:06.0) Permalink Comments [1]
Friday July 15, 2005 Atom 1.0 and other items Ongoing
Congrats to Tim Bray and to all the contributors he thanks in this writeup - Atom 1.0 is on its way. Cool! While I'm talking about Tim and the ongoing blog, I have to point out two of his recent blogs. Tim's thoughts on the New Public Relations are great reading for a marketing newbie like me (or anyone paying attention to how communication in the business world is a'changin' - the blog has definitely stirred some controversy!) and then Tim's story about Iron for Drupal is well worth a read as well. I do love it when a good turn floats all of our boats. Thanks, Tim. And congrats again.
(2005-07-15 01:24:53.0) Permalink
Wednesday May 04, 2005 Props to Wired magazine for receiving the Magazine Award's top prize of General Excellence. I discovered this via Chris Anderson's posting on the Long Tail blog - a self-proclaimed "public diary on the way to a book."
The Wired team submitted the February, October and November 2004 editions. Obviously they chose well.
I assume that the National Magazine Award is for content more than cover art, but I have to point out that my favorite Wired cover artwork for 2004 was the March Googlemania cover of Larry and Sergey. Cool stuff.
(2005-05-04 16:47:27.0) Permalink Comments [2]
Thursday March 31, 2005 Benefits Blogging Brings to Business
I was talking to a friend of a friend who works at a company that does not yet promote employee blogging a la blogs.sun.com.
This conversation made me wonder - if you work for a company that doesn't yet encourage employee blogging, and you're wondering about whether you should influence your company to start blogging, where do you go from there? How do you go from wondering about whether to encourage blogging to articulating the benefits to the business to assessing cultural compatibility to persuading key influencers - and finally, to working the logistics?
Tim Bray recently wrote an articulate list of Ten Reasons why Blogging is good for your career that garnered lots of attention, and I particularly like Jim Grisanzio's addition to the list - that Blogging is fun. But still, these (albeit excellent) writeups primarily focus on the benefits to the individual.
What about the benefits to the company? The first book I read when I started directing the OpenSolaris effort back in the fall of 2003 was the cluetrain manifesto (arguably I should have read it before I was asked to lead the effort, but I suppose I must have had other redeeming qualities.) Cluetrain's opening paragraph captures the compelling attraction of "authentic voice" and the benefits of allowing individuals to speak in unvarnished fashion:
"These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked."
"Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal."
A talented program manager once told me a story about a friend of hers in startup land, who proudly forwarded their first press release after being in stealth mode. Being a good friend, she read it, with the intention of emailing back congratulations and some kind of witty indication that she'd read the press release. She read it, and re-reread it, then re-read it again, and again. It made no sense. She finally emailed her friend with congrats - and a sheepish "but what exactly have you announced? I don't get it." Even well-written press-releases (which was not the case in this case) require a filter to interpret. Some companies now recognize this, and realize that blogs and authentic voice can help them reach more customers, more easily (since not everyone is willing to employ a filter to figure out what something means.)
Wade Roush recently profiled Sun's blogging efforts in a MIT Technology Review article titled Sun Microsystems: Blog Heaven and expounded a bit on the benefits to the business. From the article (link to Simon's SunMink blog is all mine):
"Sun’s Simon Phipps, whose job title is chief technology evangelist, says that researchers and developers can swap more ideas, build better software, and meet customers’ needs faster if they are active in online communities, where blogs play the dual role of soap- and suggestion-box. "In a world where you must speak with an authentic voice," says Phipps, "the obvious way is to let the people you most trust—your employees—speak directly to the -people you most want to appeal to—your customers.""
and further down in Roush's article:
"consumer-oriented companies that abjure the blogosphere are missing out on opportunities to generate buzz, monitor customer concerns, and—perhaps most importantly—show their human side."
The Economist, king of the witty subtitle, recently profiled Robert Scoble with an article titled Chief humanising officer. From the Economist:
"[Scoble] has also succeeded where small armies of more conventional public-relations types have been failing abjectly for years: he has made Microsoft, with its history of monopolistic bullying, appear marginally but noticeably less evil to the outside world, and especially to the independent software developers that are his core audience. Bosses and PR people at other companies are taking note."
Consistent with the sentiment in the Economist, but more colourful (yellow bricks come to mind), is an excerpt from Jason Theodor's blog:
"Robert Scoble has done the unthinkable with me: he has humanized Microsoft. He has convinced me of something that I always knew but was afraid to admit: companies, especially huge ones like Microsoft, General Motors, Nike, etc, are made up of individuals. It is far harder to hate individuals than it is to hate a faceless corporate monolith. Our world works because of people like you and me doing our jobs, often behind an iron curtain. If people knew what was really going on they would… what? Perhaps sympathize with you! When did Dorothy and the Tin Man and the gang really get the most out of their Oz experience? When they looked behind the curtain, when they realized that the Great Oz was a falible human being, and that the real power lay in their own abilities…"
Joshua Allen, the first Microsoft blogger, talks about corporate blogging here. I like his analogy to having dinner, and to playing golf. Blogging doesn't put buzzwords and a formal tone of voice in between you and the reader. Rather, it's like having a conversation, and building a relationship. And at the end of the day, it's our personal relationships that help drive all sorts of business opportunities, by connecting people to ideas and back to people. From Joshua's blog:
"To me, a “blog” is a personal, unedited, and authentic journal of a single individual who you come to know over time. Hosting a blog is like having dinner with some people you meet at a conference, friends, neighbors, or whoever. While we encourage employees to be active in their communities and interact as much as possible with peers, customers, and so on -- and we selectively hire for such engaged people -- it's difficult to put a metric on “played golf with some customers”. To me, blogs in the truest sense of the word are just like that."
Finally, Om Malik wrote a great article recently titled, How Yahoo Got Its Mojo Back, and spoke a bit about the impact of key bloggers:
And what it also has a couple of guys, I like to call them blog evangelists, who knowingly or not, have brought the right kind of attention to the company. Russell Beattie who recently joined Yahoo has been blogging furiously (much to my annoyance) about Yahoo and its wireless efforts. In normal course of events, Yahoo would have issued a press release, and many of us would have paid little or no attention. Jeremy Zawodny is the other and has helped the company focus on some of the newer social media trends. I have never met him, but if his blog is anything to go by, then perhaps he is spreading the open media religion at Yahoo."
Ok, enough quotes and links to give you background on the benefits blogging brings to business. Let's move on. If you're convinced that you want to start up a company blogging area, Tim Bray has written about the effort to get blogs.sun.com off the ground in his Making Sun Policy writeup. And I highly recommend your company create a "blogging policy" to set the tone and try to avoid misunderstandings. Tim also blogged about Sun's Policy for Public Discourse - which includes his thoughts (and he is most certainly in a leadership position here) and a pointer to the official Sun policy.
In recent weeks, many of us have watched the wonderfully transparent evolution of the blogging guidelines for Thomas Nelson Publishers. The COO, Michael Hyatt, posted the initial Corporate Blogging Rules in his blog, and based on great feedback he received, he subsequently revised the rules because:
"Many readers were put off by the formality and legalese of the document. They felt it should be more conversational and less intimidating—after all, we are trying to promote blogging within our company not stifle it. ... Some even noted items that we had neglected to address, like who owns the content."
It's worth a peek to look at the much-improved second-draft on Michael Hyatt's Working Smart blog - now called Corporate Blogging Guidelines.
The next decision has to do with software and infrastructure. A company can: 1) Host their own blog service, 2) Pay someone else to host the service, or 3) Setup a "blog aggregator page" and ask the employees to individually select their blog hosting services (there are free services and for-fee services available for individuals.) Dave Johnson of Roller fame recently sent me the following on blogging software (thanks, Dave):
These seem to be the most popular options for hosting your own server:
- Movable Type (commercial, written in Perl)
- Wordpress (GPL, written in PHP)
...
- Roller (Apache license, written in Java)
MovableType users seem to be switching to Wordpress in droves since the MovableType licensing changes introduced last year. Roller is actually pretty far down the list, mostly due to the lack of ISP support for Java servers. ISPs that support Perl and PHP are a dime a dozen, but a good Java ISP is hard to find (they do exist). I usually only recommend Roller for those who want to host a very large number of blogs and/or prefer a Java-J2EE based solution.
And the link above to the Thomas Nelson Corporate Blogging Guidelines includes a list of blogging services that individuals can choose. Owen of Asymptotic created a detailed breakdown of blogging software, coupled with a description of the blogging software choice that Owen made as a result. For those of you who are detail-oriented, well, have fun with this. :-)
Finally, if blogs (and wikis) are still new to you and you want to know more, Lauren Wood recently published a Gilbane Report titled, Blogs & Wikis: Technologies for Enterprise Applications? Enjoy...
(2005-03-31 13:24:16.0) Permalink Comments [5]
Thursday March 24, 2005 I've taken the plunge into things delicious and have started to use del.icio.us to organize, track and tag links in a more social manner.
You can find out more about del.icio.us - but so far, the best beginner's guide that I've found is here. (Thanks, John.)
Here's my first set of del.icio.us/claireg links.
Beelerspace: Us.ef.ul - A beginner's guide to the Next Big Thing
A useful beginner's guide to del.icio.us
tecosystems: Alan Taylor's At it Again
Stephen O'Grady raves about Alan's useful del.icio.us bookmarklet - check it out
Blogs & Wikis: Technologies for Enterprise Applications? | Gilbane Reports
Lauren Wood on the use of blogs and wikis in business
AdaptivePath: A New Approach to Web Applications
Answers the question "What is Ajax and why should you care?"
Stephe Walli: Does not compete
Comparison of SpikeSource and Optaros (from Stephe at Optaros)
AC/OS: Rules from O'Reilly
Matt Asay talks about Tim O'Reilly's rules for successful apps at ETech 05
AC/OS: Linux at the high end
What does the future hold for the embedded mobile market?
(2005-03-24 00:22:01.0) Permalink
Wednesday March 16, 2005 ETech 05, George Dyson and Von Neumann's Universe
I doubt George Dyson will post slides from his Von Neumann's Universe talk at ETech yesterday, since hopefully he's working on a book along the same vein, but if he did post the slides, they would both fascinate you and make you laugh. The audience was in stitches as George took us through a real and comical history of the creation of modern computers.
My grandfather was a huge history buff and knew a lot about the history of New Hampshire. He acquired old artifacts as well - maps, books, state supreme court benches, all things historical. I didn't get it and always wondered what intrigued him so much. And yet somehow, even to a non-historian like me, George, armed with an extensive collection of historical notebooks and maps and pictures, made the history of computing come alive yesterday.
Others have already blogged on the Dyson talk here and also on BoingBoing. Danese got it right in her New DivaBlog when she encouraged folks to GO hear George Dyson talk if they get the chance. It's well worth it.
My favorite part were the many photos of the research notebooks, with the all caps and emphatic hand-written notes saying things like:
"I CAN BE AS STUBBORN AS THIS THING!"
and:
"I have now duplicated both results. How will I know which is right? ...Assuming one is in fact correct?"
Also amusing was the correspondence complaining about how much sugar and tea the engineers/scientists consumed (sugar was rationed during the war) complete with suggestion that they should take their tea in a different building so they could be properly supervised at tea-time!
Technorati Tag: etech
(2005-03-16 15:45:02.0) Permalink
Sunday March 06, 2005 Top 10 Reasons It's Better to Be a Bartender Than An Engineer
Before OpenSolaris, after we had shipped Solaris 9, I had a chat with a senior engineer, who was trying to figure out his next steps and was a bit frustrated. The engineer is tremendously talented and sees around corners to find problems that other people consistently miss - and is unlike everyone else in the team. Classic example of a brilliant square peg in a round world. Anyway, somewhere along the way, in frustration he quipped, "Maybe I'll just become a bartender..." Well, I couldn't take it. After all, in my mind (apologies to all the marvelous bartenders of the world) it was way better to be a Solaris engineer than a bartender. Wasn't it? Isn't it? I had to do something. But what?
I turned to Letterman for inspiration. Growing up, I had moved around every 2-3 years (perhaps that's why I've been in California, and at Sun, for so long - a form of rebellion against constant change.) As a result, I had to learn how to make friends easily. But being smart got in the way. So I started trying to make people laugh as a way to break the ice. At age 11, it seemed obvious that laughter is a great connector. The sad thing is, try as I might, I'm just not funny. Well, that's not strictly true. I do make people laugh. Only they don't laugh at my jokes - they just laugh at what comes before, or after. Or when I say, in denial, with full-on earnestness, "No, I didn't break my leg, I only fractured my tibia". Oh well. Anyway, this explains why I turned to Letterman for inspiration. End of disgression.
I decided to create a "Top 10 Reasons It's Better to Be a Solaris Engineer than A Bartender" list as a gift to the square-peg engineer. Easy to write, after all, since it is better to be a Solaris engineer than a bartender. But, sigh, so not funny. When I ran a draft by Bryan Cantrill, he suggested we turn the list on its head. And here's the result, my gift to the brilliant engineer, to make him feel appreciated in a backwards sort of way, with help from Adam and Karyn.
Top 10 Reasons It's Better to be a Bartender than an Engineer:
10. You get to throw out annoying customers
9. The tips are bigger than the sunshare bonus.
8. You don't have to go to a steering committee to mix someone a drink.
7. Drunks are not nearly as long winded as Tony.
6. It doesn't take 6 signatures to hire a new bartender.
5. It's in a growth industry.
4. It's a lot more fun to work from home.
3. You don't need ARC approval for a new Cosmo recipe.
2. You never look at one of your fellow bartenders and think "what the heck does that guy do all day?"
1. Being a bartender helps you get action.
There were some much funnier and racier line items, but I didn't have the chutzpah to mail them out back in 2002, and I'm certainly not going to blog them now. LOL funny, though...
(2005-03-06 15:23:04.0) Permalink Comments [2]
